http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/17206.html

Mexico City officials attempt to shut down U.S. hotel

Wire services
El Universal
March 01, 2006

City officials moved Tuesday to shut down a major, U.S.-owned hotel that angered many Mexicans when it kicked out a Cuban delegation under pressure from Washington.
Virginia Jaramillo Flores, head of the city borough where the upscale Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel is located, said authorities notified the hotel staff that it would be closed because it is in violation of building codes.

Jaramillo said the hotel could reopen when it had corrected the violations and paid a fine of more than 155,000 pesos (US$15,000).

Borough officials posted signs in several languages in front of the hotel's front entrance saying, "Due to infringement of local law, the Sheraton Hotel activities have been suspended. We are sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused. Thank you for your understanding."

It was not immediately clear if guests or employees would have to leave or if the hotel would be able to legally block the closure.

Laura Canepa, a representative for hotel owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., said company officials were consulting with their lawyers about the implications of the measure.

"The Hotel Sheraton Maria Isabel expresses its great surprise in response to this action from the borough authorities, which we found out about first from the news media," she told reporters gathered at the hotel, reading from a prepared statement.

A hotel employee answering the telephone Tuesday afternoon accepted a reservation for Tuesday night without suggesting there would be any problem.

Meanwhile, city officials had placed large red "CLOSED" stickers on the glass of every access door to the hotel. Tania Hall, a young woman from New Hampshire who said she had been staying at the hotel since Monday, seemed momentarily stunned when she approached the main entrance.

"What?! I have no idea what's going on," she said. "It's kind of unbelievable."

She was then quickly whisked away by a hotel employee who allowed her to enter the hotel through revolving doors plastered with the city's orders.

Guest Mark Lee, a businessmen from Los Angeles, said he had not received any information from hotel officials, but was not worried about possibly having to find another place to stay.

"As long as we can get our luggage and our property, we'll be fine," Lee said.

The expulsion of 16 Cuban oil industry officials on Feb. 2 prompted local officials to launch an intensive investigation of the hotel, located alongside the U.S. Embassy, seeking violations of local ordinances.

They accused it of several minor violations and of having built part of the structure without a building license.

Federal officials, meanwhile, filed a complaint seeking to fine the hotel for allegedly violating Mexican investment and trade laws that are aimed at blocking application of U.S. laws inside Mexico.

The hotel's expulsion of the Cubans, who were attending a meeting with American energy executives to discuss possible investment opportunities in Cuba's oil industry, caused a national uproar in Mexico, which is heading into a presidential election campaign.

Politicians competed to denounce the expulsion as a violation of Mexican sovereignty. Mexico City is governed by the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, which alleges that the conservative government of President Vicente Fox has been too compliant with U.S. policy.

Officials at the U.S. Treasury Department later said if the hotel had not expelled the Cubans, it would have been in violation of a long-standing embargo against the communist-ruled island.

Jaramillo said Tuesday that she has shut down 37 other hotels in the city so far, and that inspectors became aware of the Sheraton's irregularities because of the controversy over the Cubans.

"We are acting in accordance with the law," she said. Last week, a federal judge ruled that officials could not shut down the hotel until she decided on the hotel's request for an injunction to block charges it violated city building, liquor and other codes.

It was not clear if the judge had issued that injunction. The judge's injunction "does not impede me from continuing with the actions that the borough has to carry out," Jaramillo told radio station Formato 21.