WTF?? Refugees Must Make Room For Football Fans

[Eric McTavish]

Now this I cannot believe!!! (edit) Of course they are a busness and do have obglations...just a sad situation all around.
LINK

Refugees must make room for football fans
By S.V. Date, COX NEWS SERVICE

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — First it was Hurricane Katrina chasing them away. Now it's college football fans.
Hundreds of refugees from Hurricane Katrina are being evicted from Tallahassee hotels to accommodate fans coming to town for the Miami-Florida State game Monday night.

"There is absolutely no compassion here whatsoever," Lynne Bernard wrote on a bulletin board on the Web site of The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. "The Hampton Inn in Tallahassee is pretty much throwing us out because of a football game."

A message left for the manager at the Hampton Inn was not returned, but other hoteliers said there was little they could do to help those who fled homes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama because they had to honor long-standing reservations for the football weekend.

At the Courtyard Marriott near the Capitol, evacuees were taking up 15 of the hotel's 154 rooms on Wednesday. A Quality Inn had several dozen of its 90 rooms occupied by storm refugees.

"This weekend has been booked for a couple of months," said Antwan Hinkle, the Quality Inn's front desk manager.

Hinkle said people who have planned trips for months would not take it well if they were told just days before the game that the hotel

could not provide rooms. "We're going to have a whole bunch of angry people," he said.
Christian Heritage Church announced plans to open its doors for as many as 200 refugees for four nights starting Friday, then began referring people to the local chapter of the American Red Cross, which is planning to open shelters for as many as 3,000.

"When Miami fans come in, it pretty much takes over Tallahassee," said Cheryl Everett, a church volunteer. She said the church planned to start serving meals to refugees Wednesday evening.

Katrina's refugees are not the first to feel the FSU squeeze. Lawmakers brought in for special sessions during the fall know that their prestige means nothing when they compete for hotel rooms with football fans. And if they extend their sessions into May, they know the feeling of getting evicted in favor of parents arriving for graduation ceremonies.

[Jeannie Fitzgerald]

Just goes to show you that the bottom line is the bottom line. If it wasn't for the fact that too much money is at stake, the logical thing to to do in this case is cancel the game. That's all it is. A damned game! Yet people treat it like it was life and death, never mind a place to stay IS life and death to the people being displaced. Talk about a place needing "cleansing for their sins" (oh...wait...was I being bitter and sarcastic?).

[Dark Amy]

"there was little they could do to help those who fled homes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama because they had to honor long-standing reservations for the football weekend. " BULLSHIT! The football fans are human, they'd surely have been willing to skip a game to help the Katrina victims - this is the most despicable thing I've heard in years, I can't believe it. I know people are unduly obsessed with the game but even so! I hope I'm right that the football fans wouldn't be so heartless.

"people who have planned trips for months would not take it well if they were told just days before the game that the hotel could not provide rooms. " Oh the poor suffering things! Their plight is so much worse than that of the Katrina victims!!

I'm totally enraged about this. I hope this gets more media coverage as this would (probably) make it impossible for the hoteliers and any selfish fans to keep up this policy - at least the possibility of being shown as the pigs they are to the nation would shame them into doing the right thing!

[Buxom Wench]

O M G

Excuse me but, ARE THEY F*CKING KIDDING???

NOW I've heard everything!!
Have these ,and I use the term VERY loosley, "people" completely lost their collective minds??
To displace people that have lost literally everything for a stupid football game??
While most of the country is trying to help, leave it to a bunch of jocks to put the kabash on someone's life.
As for the hotels, I would like to see a list PRINTED to let everyone know how heartless they are being.
Maybe if enough people were to email, write or what have you to the corporate offices, something could be done.

I'm sorry, I just don't understand how so-called humans can be so damned selfish when so many are just trying to stay alive and keep their families together.