When John Miller showed up at the Holiday Inn on Greenfield Road Wednesday afternoon to collect a past-due invoice, he knew something was amiss.

"The whole place was dark," the president of On-Site Containers, said. "The front-desk staff was sitting around in the lobby and people staying in the hotel were standing outside."

What the guests didn't know was that PPL Corp. had shut off the facility's electricity for nonpayment.

Things rapidly went from bad to worse that day at what InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) referred to in a statement Wednesday evening as "the former Holiday Inn" at 521 Greenfield Road.

IHG owns the Holiday Inn brand  and is the franchiser to Kronos Hotels LLC, of Atlanta, Ga., which operates the Greenfield Road hotel. In a written statement to the Sunday News, IHG spokesman Stephen Boggs confirmed the franchise tag had been revoked.

Also Wednesday, state health officials conducted a follow-up inspection at the hotel, documenting 67 state health code violations. (See restaurant inspections, G8.) These included rodents in the Dumpster area just outside the kitchen door and the evidence of rodents in the food-preparation area itself. Officials ordered the hotel to close its kitchen.

Friday, liquor control enforcement officers confirmed they will be filing charges against individuals at the hotel as a result of illegal sales of alcohol at the facility. The hotel does not have a liquor license.

Kronos spokesman Peter Mathon issued this statement Friday:

"Like many small and medium-size companies, we are being adversely affected by America's current financial environment.  Despite this short-term difficulty, we remain committed to operating the hotel in a first-class manner on a long-term basis.  We're confident that our situation will benefit substantially as the economy improves and as the travel market stabilizes, including the ability to complete an extensive hotel renovation which was begun and which represents an investment to date of almost $2 million."

When PPL shut off electricity at about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to a guest who requested anonymity, many guests began to check out.

A bus bringing tourists from Ohio arrived shortly after the outage and quickly departed after the tour leader entered the hotel and spoke with staff.

Thursday morning, a hotel employee estimated that about 12 guests remained in the building.

PPL spokesman John Levitski said while he could not discuss the details of individual accounts, "I can confirm we did cut the service for nonpayment. We've had conversations with many people over there and weren't able to work anything out."

He said the fact power was restored  Thursday meant, "they must have made a payment."

Padlocked bins
John Miller was leasing 12 containers to the hotel to store furniture awaiting installation, part of a renovation project. Last Monday,  he had presented the hotel with a notice of default and padlocked the bins. He told staff that he would reclaim his containers — and their contents — if he wasn't paid by Oct. 1.

When he arrived Wednesday afternoon, he found his padlocks had been cut and the containers' contents  removed.

Thursday morning, as he hauled the bins onto trucks, Miller said he confronted a general manager about the destroyed locks and was told, "I don't know who cut them off."

Losing the Holiday Inn flag is a major setback for the hotel. It must surrender its name and is no longer part of Holiday Inn's online booking reservation service.

Attempts to access the reservations Web page prompt an "error" message stating the hotel is no longer part of the system.

The hotel doesn't appear on the Holiday Inn "site locator" map, either.

The terse IHG statement reads, "Holiday Inn is very concerned about the reported issues at the former Holiday Inn hotel in Lancaster, PA (Visitor's Center).

"As a franchiser, we have brand standards that franchised hotels must comply with; however, we do not control the day-to-day operations of franchised hotels since they are independently owned and operated. "At this time, the hotel has been terminated from the Holiday Inn system."

Chris Barrett, president of the Lancaster County Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, hopes something positive will eventually come from the current mess.

The hotel "had been a member of the bureau when Lodgian owned the property," Barrett said. "We had many events there and never had any problems at all."

However, Barrett said, "They are not a member now," and added, "We do not recommend them to anyone who comes here."

Barrett said his last dealings with the hotel centered on the two large Amish statues on the property. They have fallen into disrepair and been vandalized with graffiti.

"A lot of guests come here and want to take a photograph with them," Barrett said. "Our first concern is safety because they have to cross the street [Hempstead Road] to get there. We asked if they would consider giving them to us so we could place them on our property."

Barrett said the individual he talked to was "kind of open to it" but that individual is no longer with the facility and nothing further has transpired.

Multiple GMs
According to some former employees, between six to eight general managers have served the hotel since the Kronos purchase 15 months ago.

Bob Byrnes might be one of the longest-tenured general managers, having served from November 2007 through March 2008.

His first clue of potential problems came when he found the hotel was "constantly trying to get any kind of service. Even when we got something working, the check [to the provider} would bounce and they wouldn't come back."

Byrnes also described a scene when the hotel was renovating: "When we started stripping the wallpaper we found all kinds of mold on the walls. We had a huge mold problem and we had to take care of it either with bleach, a cleanser or new sheet rock. It was going to be expensive."

But Byrnes said corporate officials told him to "talk to a guy up in Michigan who was taking care of the problem in one of their properties there for $300 a room. It turned out all he was doing was painting over the wallpaper directly."

As far as their pay process, Byrnes said, "They'd cut checks, but they wouldn't release them. So when you went into the computer system, it showed people had been paid, except the checks were never delivered."

Byrnes got shorted.

"In February, I went to IHG headquarters [in Atlanta] for a training session," he said. "When I came back I had about $500 in expenses, but I was never reimbursed."

Byrnes sued Kronos to get the money he was owed.

"One month later I was terminated," he said.

The financial issues still mystify Byrnes. Earlier in his career he served as a controller for another hotel, and is familiar with accounting systems.

"That hotel could easily be self-sufficient financially, and turn a profit,  if it were left by itself," he said. "I have no idea where the money was going."

Overall, Byrnes said, "My concern is for the community. How many people —  employees, guests — have been negatively affected by this operation?"

Short tenure
Kevin Getchius had a shorter tenure, serving as general manager from the end of July to early August 2007.

"I know what IHG and Holiday Inn stands for," he said. "Since Kronos took that property over it has steadily gone down.

"I had many situations where constables came and presented us with notices of execution," he said.

And, he confirmed, "Our paychecks did bounce.

"After a while, nobody here would accept checks from there except Wal-Mart," he said. "None of the check-cashing companies would accept them. Wachovia, the bank the checks were drawn from, would not accept them."

Getchius said when the previous sales manager left, she did not tell anyone the password to access the facility's phone messaging system. And because Kronos had not paid the communications provider, it would not reset the password.

For about two weeks no one could retrieve messages from the system.

When the situation was finally resolved, the problem of dealing with the backlog of messages fell to the newest member of the sales staff, Kandy Rhoads.

"There were at least 75 calls in there from people asking about our facilities. There was no way I could answer them all."

Rhoads, who resigned Sept. 26, also found herself in the middle of the facility's problems with the state Liquor Control Board.

Liquor Control enforcement officers executed a search warrant at the property Sept. 23, after officers observed drinks being sold in a banquet room Sept. 18.

The hotel hasn't had a liquor license since February.

Rhoads said the contract for the Sept. 18 function called for alcohol to be served.

"I kept asking about the liquor license," Rhoads said, and she was told there would be no problem.

"Then the chef told me if the LCB came in and saw us serving alcohol, they would hold me personally responsible.

"I got nervous and called [general manager] Jay [Sharma] in his room and asked him, 'Are you sure I can do this?' " she said. "He said, 'I'm telling you it's OK.' "

Sharma also instructed her, Rhoads said, to place money from liquor sales in an envelope, put his name on it, and place it in the hotel safe.

"I was in the banquet room when the LCB showed up," Rhoads said. According to Rhoads, she called Sharma, who was not at the hotel, and he told her "to tell the LCB that you were going to give the money back" to the patrons after the event ended.

Sharma is no longer general manager.

According to Liquor Control enforcement documents obtained by the Sunday News, officers found 30 bottles of spirits, three half-kegs, eight cases and 122 bottles of beer, two bottles of wine, 13 bottles of champagne and receipts for alcohol purchases.

Officer Greg Harvat said the hotel, like any unlicensed business, is "not allowed to store alcohol overnight."

While Harvat has been involved in searches in which more liquor was seized, usually in speakeasies, he said the amount of alcohol at the hotel surprised him. "This was more than we expected."

Harvat also said the confiscated receipts show sales occurring over a long period and that those witnessed on Sept. 18 were "not an isolated incident."

He said the investigation is still ongoing. "We need to determine who is responsible and then we will be filing criminal charges," he said.

That filing, Harvat said, will happen in the next two weeks.

Vendor tipped off
Miller, of On-Site Containers, said he was thankful for an early heads-up from a hotel employee.

"They originally ordered 22 containers," he said. "I brought 12, and when I came back with two more, an employee came up to me and said, 'You don't want to do this. You know you're not going to get paid.' "

He stopped deliveries .

Miller said he witnessed an interesting scene Wednesday because another vendor had arrived before him when the power was off and was angrily demanding payment of his bills. Miller said the vendor asked the bookkeeper to produce his invoices so he could go over the items with her.

The bookkeeper retreated to her office, Miller said, emerged a few minutes later, and told the vendor, "I'm sorry, I can't find your invoices. It's too dark in there."

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Chip Smedley is a staff writer for the Sunday News. E-mail him at csmedley@lnpnews.com.