Former owners and operators of the Lancaster Host Resort & Conference Center have agreed to pay $675,000 to a predominantly black church to settle claims that it denied parishioners rooms because of their race, court records show.
Fine Hotels Corp. and two related firms denied allegations of wrongdoing made by leaders of Macedonia Church in Norwalk, Conn., but agreed to the cash settlement in return for the class-action suit being dropped in June.
The church's leader, the Rev. DeWitt Stevens Jr., could not immediately be reached for comment, but he told the Stamford Advocate newspaper he is pleased the 6-year-old case has finally been resolved.
"I am so thankful to God that justice has prevailed," Stevens told the paper. "I am so glad it is over with. If it went to a jury, it could have gone any way, but I think they had enough evidence stacked against them that the jury would have gone our way."
An attorney for the defendants, Gerald L. Maatman Jr. of the Chicago law firm of Seyfarth Shaw, said he would follow instructions from his clients and not comment on the settlement to reporters.
At the time of the alleged incident in 2004, the hotel was owned, operated and managed by Lancaster Hotel Limited Partnership, Fine Hotels and MASSPA Realty Corp., according to court records.
Fine Hotels continues to operate about a dozen hotels across the country. But it sold the sprawling 45-year-old Lincoln Highway East resort, a cornerstone of the county's tourism industry, later in 2004, according to newspaper records.
Stevens sued the companies in 2005 on behalf of Macedonia Church's 114 members after the Host allegedly said it would allow parishioners to stay there during a summer trip that included plans to attend a show at Sight & Sound Theatres and visit Hersheypark. According to the complaint, resort officials later claimed the Host was overbooked.
Stevens, suspecting his church was being treated unfairly, asked a white parishioner of a Presbyterian church to try booking dozens of rooms on the same dates, and was told they were available.
U.S. District Judge Tucker Melancon approved the settlement, noting the hotel's records showed it had rooms on the dates it told Macedonia it was booked.
The Host is now managed by Baltimore-based Milestone Hotel Partners.
