A hotel that charges $1,000 per night with 261 rooms is charged $1,600,000 for multiple years worth of violations.
If I understand the math correctly, this hotel, when fully booked, would make that much in revenue in a week.
I'm continually reminded why many companies have employees who choose to do unethical things: they'll make more money than the fine will ever amount to.
average booking rate is likely under 50% (high dollar hotels will always have rooms available), and you can bet their expenses are through the roof. $1.6MM does not represent a week of income. It is definitely a big hit.
No matter, the fine is purely penalty anyway. They aren't making extra money from denying public beach access.
I've only been going there for a few years now (for a meal now and again), but in those few years I see clearly marked public parking, clear signs that "public beach access is this way", and about half the time, the person in front of me is clearly telling the gate clerk that they are there for public access, and they are directed to the public part of the garage. So this fine is puzzling to me.
Perhaps at the times I go, heavy visitor season (3 day weekends, mother's day, etc), they follow the rules but "most" of the time they ignore them? Still, to my eye, the signage is very prominent and it's clear that public access is available.
Percentage linked penalties of gross earnings or pre-tax income is a better way to hit companies or individuals.
GPDR follows this method, and it should be continued. - if you're going to lose 4% of gross earnings by violating a law, you're much less likely to do it.
Definitely not. They agreed to it during the permitting phase. Companies are often required to build public access 'stuff' regularly - nothing different here, really.
Just because you own property doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want with it. The Ritz knew there would be conditions, and they chose to agree. They could have sold the property and built a hotel elsewhere if they didn’t like the conditions.
If I understand the math correctly, this hotel, when fully booked, would make that much in revenue in a week.
I'm continually reminded why many companies have employees who choose to do unethical things: they'll make more money than the fine will ever amount to.