By Chandre Prince

An East London beachfront hotel is locked in a bitter dispute with a top Gauteng swimming club which it claims left them more than R100000 out of pocket.

In papers before the East London High Court, the Esplanade Hotel, which trades as Six Bar Trading 297 CC, claims it suffered damages of about R110949 in April 2005 after the Central Gauteng Aquatics club vacated the hotel ahead of the time stipulated in their booking.

The club had reserved accommodation, including all meals for about 78 people from April 3 to April 10, 2005, while they attended the Telkom SA National Aquatics Championships in East London.

The event drew celebrities of the stature of Olympics medallists Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling – but they were swimming for other clubs.

In their affidavit, the hotel claims the club vacated their premises on April 4, just one day after booking in, and paid just R23921 for their one night stay.

The Esplanade contends that this departure six days ahead of schedule and the club’s subsequent refusal to make up the outstanding balance, amounted to a breach of agreement.

The hotel claims other prospective clients were turned away because of the block booking.

According to answering affidavits from the club, they made the booking through a travel agent six months before the championships after an alleged assurance from the hotel that the premises would be upgraded from “head to toe” and completed by December 2004 – four months ahead of the club’s arrival.

The travel agent who inspected the hotel in November 2004 on behalf of the club was shown a room that had been renovated and was allegedly told that the entire hotel would be done up in the same manner.

She was also allegedly told that the hotel was being revamped to make it disabled-friendly after it was pointed out that some of the swimmers where disabled and wheelchair bound.

The club argued they had no choice but to find alternative accommodation because the hotel failed to stick to its promises.

The swimmers were given old bedrooms of an unacceptable standard, including one room in which electrical wiring was exposed, posing a safety hazard, they said.

They further allege that the hotel was not disabled-friendly – disabled swimmers even had to be carried up stairs because the only operative lift was too narrow to hold a wheelchair.

There were also allegedly insufficient porters to carry their heavy bags to their rooms on the fourth floor, resulting in swimmers having to do so themselves.

The swimmers also claimed that there was not enough food and that the food that was served was of an unacceptable standard.

The club claims that the hotel was in breach of agreement.

Despite their alleged accommodation woes, the club came out tops in the championships, finishing with a total of 45 medals – 18 gold, 12 silver and 15 bronze.

When initially placed on the court roll, the hotel sought judgment in favour of R142239 plus 15.5% interest. But they have subsequently dropped their demand by almost R32000.

The matter was set down to be heard on Monday but Judge Elna Revelas postponed the matter until further notice.

 

Daily Dispatch

Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge