Attention Lawyers: No One Should Stay In A Motel 6. Especially Your Clients.

So you may have noticed, in your short and terrifying (or long and tedious, take your pick) time as a lawyer that you might have occasion to represent criminals. Shocking, I know! And in doing so, you may become aware that sometimes after you faithfully execute your lawyerly duty and get your client off the hook or your client duly serves his or her time, they return to a life of criming. ALSO SHOCKING, WE KNOW. You may, if you are in this position, consider telling your client that they should avoid the Motel 6 chain. No, not just because Motel 6 is far too low-rent for your type of client (ha! you wish!) but because at least one link in that fine fine chain has decided that they should just give police their complete guest list every night. 

City police have arrested four people staying at the Motel 6 on Jefferson Boulevard as a result of the hotel chain's agreement to provide police with a daily guest list, [Warwick, Rhode Island] Mayor Scott Avedisian said Tuesday.

The names of Motel 6 guests, which police then check for outstanding warrants, is one of five steps Motel 6 corporate managers agreed to take in response to a string of high-profile incidents and concerns the establishment was becoming a haven for passing criminals.

This seems to be a not-ideal situation for your less-than-upstanding client base. An unholy alliance between a crappy motel, the police, and a smug-as-all-get-out mayor is the ideal recipe for your client getting arrested. Did we mention the mayor is smug? That dude is S-M-U-G. 

Everything about this is pure bootlicking dickishness. See if you can finish reading this statement without looking for something to wipe all the "smug" off you.

"We know everyone who is staying in the hotel tonight," [Mayor Scott] Avedisian said in a phone interview after a meeting with Motel 6 executives that also included Warwick police chief Col. Stephen M. McCartney and Seekonk, Mass., Town Administrator Shawn E. Cadime.

Come to think of it, even if you are not a crime-y sort of person, you may wish to avoid Motel 6 entirely, because you really do not need your wife calling up smuggity-smug mayors or police chiefs to find out where you really were last night. So, if you or your clients are planning on being on the run, or cheating on your spouse, or making a portable meth lab, or just plain getting drunk and trashing the place, choose a different location. Perhaps this?

Or this is also lovely:

Sure, there's the outside chance of getting horribly murdered, but that's a small price to pay to avoid the creeping sneering surveillance state experience that Motel 6 is going to provide you.

[ Providence Journal / Techdirt ]

 Cross-posted with permission from Bitter Empire,which should be your first stop for all bitterness. Well, after stopping here, of course. Follow Bitter Empire on Twitter at @BitterEmpire.