DoubleTree hotel apologizes for sign refusing service to military members during post-deployment...

I've seen Soldiers get out of hand plenty of times. Smart money is to have a bartender for certain hours in the event itself, with the hotel bar available, but less convenient for the attendees.
What makes this jacked up is that they posted this for all their patrons to see, while anybody not affiliated with the military could continue to patronize the bar.
Anybody who has ever been behind a bar knows how to handle someone who has had too much. This isn't it.

1SG (Join to see) - again, too much missing from the story to really make an accurate assessment.

However, if there were 600 members of the military and their guests, the options were limited. And none of them good, particularly if enough of them were getting drunk/rowdy enough to get the entire group 86’d.

Individually tell each person that the group has been cut off? Ok, now you’re risking 600 individual, drunken, ‘lemme talk to your manager!’ conversations.

Announce it over the PA system, so the entire hotel is guaranteed to hear it?

Having maybe done this once or twice, it sounds like the group got wild. Ok, it happens. The manager of the hotel staff told the leader of the party that they were 86ing the group, and and since it was impractical to hunt them all down individually and unwise to tell them in the PA, they lazily put up a sign. Maybe not the best move, but certainly not a hanging offense,

It’s funny how soldiers didn’t seem to make a big deal out of this. It was griped about by a disabled vet, and the highlite of her quote was, “Just so you know, we did not damage the building...”. Good lord. Implication being, they were wild enough that people would think they actually did damage the building,

And predictably, Double tree responded by firing some people. Because who wants to butt heads with the military/disabled vet crowd? Particularly in Colorado Springs, where about 30% of the economy is military driven.

It’s just unfortunate. However, how would you handle a 600 person group, with enough people being drunk/rowdy enough so that the entire group needs to be cut off?

Best of luck

SGT (Join to see) - Thing is, there is always someone in charge oif a military group. If an individual was out of control, or even a group of them - which happens - my response if I'm running the hotel is to go find the official I liaised with to set up the event to sort it out and square away the rowdies. The bartender screwed up by over-serving, and the Soldiers screwed up by getting plastered.
If it is my unit, I got this. And I don't need any help to handle all 600 of them if I have to. Chances are it never gets to that point in my unit with me around, but if it did, the whole kit and caboodle would be sent to their rooms for the night while I sort out who has a problem that requires extra attention, if any.
Frankly, I'd be embarrassed if my unit acted so poorly in public that they got cut off.

But in this instance, it knida sounds like the staff just didn't want to deal with them anymore and put up a sign, which is a chicken shit way to handle things.

1SG (Join to see) - I agree with you. But, This event actually,reflects poorly on the military, also. The fact that no soldiers were quoted for the article indicates that soldiers were probably getting out of hand.

Was it handled perfectly? Probably not? Did two civilians deserve to lose their jobs? Definitely not. There are far worse, more offensive slights than a large group of rowdy joes getting cut off via printed out sign on the bar. It’s better to underserve and offend than grossly overserve and get some real problems started.

Again, too much info is missing. Maybe the leaders of the group were the drunkest and couldn’t control their people. It wouldn’t be the first time. Who knows. But if the soldiers or military personnel were offended, there’s a good chance that half the unit would have been quoted for the article. None of them were.

It was just one person griping about $12 drinks and bragging about not damaging the building. As many RP threads point out, I guess everyone has the right to be offended. But ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal. It certainly wasn’t a ‘lose your job’ big deal.

Would a soldier get chaptered out of the Army for making a questionable decision (that didn’t break any laws or violate any regulations) simply because it possibly questionable?

This situation could/should be resolved privately between Unit and hotel leadership. “Hey we’re both sorry, let’s try again the next time you have a ball, and we’ll get you a special rate on rooms, food, etc”.

It says in the story that two "supervisor level employees" were fired.

1SG (Join to see) - I missed that. I didn't read it all.

Apparently two "supervisor level employees" wanted to free up time to "spend with family." (as the saying goes)

What got management involved was the Facebook share of what they did. The apology was also on Facebook.
The hell of it is that hotel probably made a fortune off the event, but cut off their nose to spite their face. It is a pretty safe bet that they will lose business from this little stunt, and for sure that unit won't be back for another event.