Published since 2005. San Francisco is a city that belongs to the people of the world. Hence this blog has a global focus. The name "Sam Spade's San Francisco" refers to an exciting era in the City's history, the time of Dashiell Hammett's fictional gumshoe and San Francisco character, Sam Spade. My name is Tom Dunn and I edit the blog. I'm not as exciting as Sam Spade, but I am definitely a San Francisco character.Contact or on Twitter -- Search blog below.
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Monday, June 19, 2006
Argent Hotel Deceives Guests and Blocks Police
Why would the management of a major San Francisco hotel, the Argent, deliberately deceive its guests and block police efforts to solve crimes committed at the Argent? It has San Francisco civic leaders puzzled, but that's exactly what happened at the Argent Hotel this past month.
Shawn Bailey, a 23-year-old local man, was arrested by San Francisco Police on charges of burglarizing rooms at the Argent and other downtown hotels. The biggest surprise for the SFPD, however, was not the criminal they caught, but the unbelievably unethical behavior of the Argent Hotel's Operations Director, James Giffin, who deliberately set out on a plan to deceive Argent Hotel guests.
As amazing as the story sounds, when hotel security employees tried to stop Bailey, he dropped a backpack containing items stolen from guest rooms and ran. Giffin, the Argent's manager, sneaked the stolen items back into the guest's room, made it look like nothing was ever wrong, and failed to inform the guest that his room had been burglarized. That's the kind of behavior one might expect from a cheap Tenderloin flop house, but not from a major San Francisco tourist hotel.
Inspector Rich Leon of the San Francisco Police Department told theChronicle, "They have him (Bailey) on the video surveillance, and they can see him actually enter nine rooms. None of the nine people have been notified that their rooms had been entered illegally."
As if this isn't disgraceful enough, Giffin and the Argent Hotel refused to provide police officers with any information about any of the burglaries and refused to file a police report. Police had to get a warrant and force the Argent to provide essential information.It appears clear that James Giffin and the Argent Hotel are more concerned with the hotel's advertising image than they are concerned about their guests' safety and welfare.
Brian Loss, a guest from Baltimore staying at the Argent Hotel, had his backpack and laptop stolen from his locked Argent Hotel room by Bailey. When San Francisco Police later contacted him and told him that Argent management had returned his backpack and laptop without telling him his room had been burglarized and his property stolen, he responded with, "I was kind of shocked. You would think a place like that, they would tell you about the burglary. They didn't."
San Francisco is in the tourism business. It is the activity that pays our civic bills. We have little control over streetcorner panhandlers, but at least we can get rid of incompetent people like James Giffin, who has just done greater damage to our hospitality reputation than all the panhandlers combined.
The job opportunities page on the Argent Hotel web site does not list an opening forOperations Director, but based on Giffin's embarrassing performance, one can assume the posting will appear shortly.
7 comments:
Anonymous said...
Didn't you know? The Argent's management has a reputation for arrogance. It's the Arrogant Argent.
This is a story about a moral and ethical deficiency. James Giffin has a problem with the truth. He is dishonest. My guess is that Giffin was so terribly afraid the thefts would reflect poorly upon his managerial abilities, that he planned and executed an elaborate plan to lie, deceive, cover-up and deny the serious problems going on at the Argent Hotel.
I can't imagine the owners of the Argent would be willing to keep someone like Giffin employed ... but then again ... George Bush regfuses to fire Don Rumsfeld. Go figure.
You can now find Mr. Giffin working at The Carneros Inn in the Napa Vally, it is a Plumpjack reasort. Let's see if Mayor Newson will keep him in his employ
Saturday, October 18, 2008 7:48:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...
The Carneros Inn has had a large number of burglaries in the guest cottages in the last year, is there any relation or is it an inside job.
Just to add additional info to this story. The Security Director at the time was Cesar Ruiz who is now the Director of Security at Sea World in San Diego. Mr. Ruiz was the individual who gave the Key to the Suspect, then later blamed-at the time-a 20 Year old Single mother female security officer who was later terminated from her position.
7 comments:
Didn't you know? The Argent's management has a reputation for arrogance. It's the Arrogant Argent.
This is a story about a moral and ethical deficiency. James Giffin has a problem with the truth. He is dishonest. My guess is that Giffin was so terribly afraid the thefts would reflect poorly upon his managerial abilities, that he planned and executed an elaborate plan to lie, deceive, cover-up and deny the serious problems going on at the Argent Hotel.
I can't imagine the owners of the Argent would be willing to keep someone like Giffin employed ... but then again ... George Bush regfuses to fire Don Rumsfeld. Go figure.
This is an interesting addition to Mr. Giffen's resume. A story like this will follow him forever.
You can now find Mr. Giffin working at The Carneros Inn in the Napa Vally, it is a Plumpjack reasort. Let's see if Mayor Newson will keep him in his employ
The Carneros Inn has had a large number of burglaries in the guest cottages in the last year, is there any relation or is it an inside job.
Just to add additional info to this story. The Security Director at the time was Cesar Ruiz who is now the Director of Security at Sea World in San Diego. Mr. Ruiz was the individual who gave the Key to the Suspect, then later blamed-at the time-a 20 Year old Single mother female security officer who was later terminated from her position.
How you like them apples?
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