• Chemical containers or empty packages of cold medicines;
• Glass containers (such as jugs, jars, or beakers) with residue in them left in a room;
• Rooms with blocked vents;
• Discarded needles;
• Items out of place for no reason;
• Guests who pay in cash, have no photo identification, appear to be using drugs, and/or have a local address;
• Vans or trucks with chemical containers, like ammonia;
• Guests who are moving bulky or boxed items into a room;
• Requests for specific out-of-the-way rooms;
• Water running in rooms for a long time;
• The odor of chloroform, ammonia, cat urine, heavy perfume or other chemicals;
• Refusal of maid service; and
• Consistent requests for room service to be left outside the door.

Steps to reduce the risk of a meth lab on a hotel property

• Keep your hotel exterior looking clean and fresh;
• Require guests and visitors to use a main entrance;
• Cancel missing room keys immediately;
• Check rooms daily for cleaning purposes;
• Monitor your hallways and the outside of your building frequently; and
• Train your employees to recognize and understand drug-related behavior.

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According to the American Heart Association, the use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and CPR has a 74 percent success rate in saving victims of a sudden cardiac arrest. Without an AED and CPR, the success rate drops to just 5 percent. There is no doubt about it, AEDs are an effective tool in saving lives.  However, from a legal standpoint, the questions of whether to implement an AED program at all, and the extent of what an AED program should be, are difficult. Any decisions made are fraught with exposure to possible legal liability in our increasingly litigious society.

As AED units become less expensive and easier to operate, legislatures are rapidly creating statutes that impose a duty to have, in certain circumstances, an AED program in place. The most common type of such a statute involves health clubs. A number of states have passed laws requiring that all gyms and health clubs have an AED program in place. Some of these statutes specifically exempt fitness centers in hotels from this requirement; others do not. 
 
As these types of statutes become more prevalent and AEDs become easier to use, there becomes a greater chance that courts will find that the prevalence of simple to use AEDs has changed the “standard of care” to make it reasonable to require an AED program for hotels, even in the absence of a specific statute requiring it.  Even if courts do not make it a specific requirement in the absence of a statute, we expect that more trial judges will allow plaintiffs to present evidence regarding the availability of AEDs to juries, and that juries will have to decide on a case by case basis whether hotels “should have had” an AED program in place while deciding whether a death could have been avoided.

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