Reopening & Room Rates

Lodging is considered an essential consumer service under anti-price gouging laws. Some state statutes specifically identify hotels and motels to be providers of essential services, and these laws contain specific language addressing how hotels and motels must restrict their rates while the limitations are in effect.

The COVID-19 crisis resulted in the largest number of declarations of emergency the country has ever seen, at every governmental level. Many of them are still in effect. Others may be reinstituted should the number of viral cases increase. As re-opening proceeds, Hotels may be tempted to make large rate adjustments to offset revenue losses due to the crisis. Hotels must take care to understand whether they are: (1) in a state with an anti-price gouging law, and (2) whether an active state of emergency still exists.

Vaping Links to Covid Risk Are Becoming Clear

September 4, 2020 via New York Times

Since the start of the pandemic, experts have warned that the coronavirus — a respiratory pathogen — most likely capitalizes on the scarred lungs of smokers and vapers. Doctors and researchers are now starting to pinpoint the ways in which smoking and vaping seem to enhance the virus’s ability to spread from person to person, infiltrate the lungs and spark some of Covid-19’s worst symptoms.