Hotel says man skipped out on $17K bill

SOUTH DAKOTA HOTEL FILES LAWSUIT

A South Dakota hotel is suing a man for allegedly skipping out on his $17,000 bill during his two-week stay to attend a festival where he was selling photos with women who were body-painted to resemble wild animals.

Rapid City Hospitality LLC and the company’s GrandStay Residential Suites say in the lawsuit filed last month that they haven’t been able to contact Dan Stockdale to pay for the eight rooms in Rapid City he booked in August 2016. Stockdale was in town for the annual Sturgis Buffalo Chip motorcycle rally, where he hoped to raise funds for his World Nature Coalition, which he says supports environmental and wildlife organizations.

“Due to not receiving any communication or payment from Mr. Stockdale and his company, World Nature Coalition, he left us no choice but to proceed with a lawsuit in an effort to collect payment on his outstanding balance,” Gavin Fawbush, the hotel’s general manager, told the Rapid City Journal .

Stockdale told the newspaper the hotel charged exorbitant rates and their rooms were infested with roaches and bedbugs — assertions the hotel denies.

Stockdale was a vendor at Sturgis Buffalo Chip, where he promoted a “spectacle of scantily clad, bodypainted models and plethora of alluring animals,” according to his advertisement on the event’s website .

“Feast your eyes on wild women and gorgeous exotic animals while supporting a great cause,” his advertisement read. It noted that proceeds from the photos customers paid to take with the models would go to his organization.

Fawbush told the newspaper in an email that Stockdale previously stayed at their hotel dozens of nights in 2015 and paid in full.