Hotel Guest Disturbed By Sidewalk Swastika
PETOSKEY(WWJ) - Who drew a swastika on the pavement outside a northern Michigan hotel -- and why was it left there for so long?
That's what hotel guest Mitch Rector is asking.
He told WWJ Newsradio 950 he became upset while, as a guest at the Days Inn Petoskey last week, he and some friends discovered the scrawled symbol of the Nazi party.
"When we were going out to dinner a friend of mine noticed it," Rector said. "So I took a picture of he swastika on the sidewalk. And walked to the front desk and she goes, 'Oh, it's been there a week. We tried to pressure wash it, and it didn't come out.' I said, 'Well, why didn't you just paint over it?'"
Rector said the woman at the desk did apologize, but it didn't seem like she thought that getting rid of it was very important.
"I told them that I was Jewish and I said, 'I find this very offensive.' And they offered me a different room. And, you know, by the time I was unpacked and everything else..." Rector said, adding that he didn't believe the symbol was directed at him.
Rector said he called the Anti-Defamation League who contacted police.
Police ordered the hotel to remove the swastika within one day and it has since been washed away.
A call by WWJ to the hotel for comment was not immediately returned.
