VIP in mobility park angers driver
Disabled hotel guest shocked and on the warpath after able-bodied parker allowed to monopolise spaces
Adisabled woman has gone to war with an Auckland hotel and a VIP guest over a mobility car park. Fran Henricksen turned up at the ibis Auckland Ellerslie hotel on Sunday evening to find a large black ute parked in a mobility parking space and a second mobility park coned off.
Exhausted from working 13 hours at the Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo at the ASB Showgrounds, Henricksen, who uses crutches from a spinal injury, said the last thing she wanted to do was “haul arse across the carpark”.
“As a disabled customer,” Henricksen said in a Facebook posting, “I was unbelievably angry to hear that the customer who was illegally parked was a hotel VIP”.
“From my interaction with the staff member I spoke to, it sounded as though the cones were put out so nobody could park next to the VIP [in the adjacent mobility park] and they were reluctant to move them so I could use that park, but eventually did when I requested that they move the cones, or I would find a way to move them myself.
“The attitude of the VIP is so obnoxious and so entitled, and your staff have let it happen, and honestly it just plain sucks,” the posting said.
Henricksen said the VIP guest, whom she did not want to name, had taken issue with the posting of the ute’s licence plate, and threatened legal action.
Henricksen said the woman VIP had told her she was allowed to park in the mobility space and had regularly been allowed to park there. Henricksen said the hotel had been in touch, agreed the incident was unacceptable and insisted it was not regular policy. However she had heard it happened fairly regularly.
Jamie O’Donnell, ibis Auckland Ellerslie general manager, said the hotel had apologised.
“We regret that on occasion guests of the hotel have used the disabled car park unnecessarily [and we] recognise the importance of offering mobility accessible car parks and facilities at our hotels in accordance with New Zealand law,” he said.
O’Donnell said the hotel had reinforced its process to ensure disabled car parks were used only by those who needed them.
It had arranged for disability action group CCS to meet staff and explain the importance of mobility parking and the needs of guests with disabilities.
The attitude of the VIP is so obnoxious and so entitled, and your staff have let it happen.
Fran Henricksen to ibis Auckland