Ritz Hotel’s not so ritzy opening
● The launch-day Prosecco of the Ritz Hotel may have been sweet but there is lingering bitterness over a liquidation court battle involving the Ritz Hotel Management Company and its landlord, the Ritz Plaza.
The court battle may explain the absence at Friday’s launch of shareholder Nicky van der Walt and his wife, Lee-Ann Liebenberg, according to a well-placed source.
However, Van der Walt insisted yesterday he and his fellow shareholders had agreed not to attend the function “so as not to offend anybody”. Friday’s event was specifically intended to allow “the product and management to take the limelight”, he said.
“It’s not about me or my wife, it’s about the hotel,” said Van der Walt.
Van der Walt was centre stage in the High Court in Cape Town in October, when the Ritz Plaza applied for a liquidation order against the management company, and was accompanied by about 50 hotel staff.
“We’ve been in a dispute with the landlord of Ritz Plaza . . . because he delayed us . . . and we would have opened in December last year,” Van der Walt said at the time.
The liquidation case was back in court on Thursday, but was postponed until May.
Lisa Carey, the Ritz’s marketing and public relations manager, said Friday’s event was not intended to be a grand opening.
“We just want to open and start trading with the rooms and restaurant,” Carey said.
Van der Walt said there would be a bigger opening event early in the new year.