B&B owner is forced to change his hotel’s name from The Viagra by council bosses (but picks something even cheekier)
By Chris Summers For Mailonline 11:44 GMT 02 Apr 2017, updated 22:24 GMT 02 Apr 2017
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- Neil Marshall changed the name of The Vidella Hotel to The Viagra Hotel
- Sammy Jones, 25, was ‘disgusted’ when she turned up, having booked online
- Blackpool Council threatened Mr Marshall with an Anti Social Behaviour Order
- Now he’s changed it to the Niagra and added a sign: ‘Keeping you wet all night’
A hotelier who wanted to call his business The Viagra Hotel was told to change the name by the local council in Blackpool but he has reacted with an even cheekier sign.
Neil Marshall upset some families when he changed the name of The Vidella Hotel in the Lancashire resort to The Viagra Hotel.
He said he changed the name recently in a bid to stand out from the stiff competition.
Sammy Jones, 25, who had booked a trip there thinking it looked ‘presentable’, said she was ‘gobsmacked’ when she turned up with her husband Kohan and two young children and described it as looking like a ‘seedy sex den’.
She turned up to find the hotel’s name had been changed and Mr Marshall had added the strapline: ‘We’ll keep you up all night’.
Ms Jones, from Knottingley, West Yorkshire, said there had been over 100 complaints on Tripadvisor from angry customers who had booked there.
She said she called Booking.com and and asked for her £45 to be refunded because the hotel was falsely advertised.
But she says she was told the inappropriate hotel name was just a ‘promotional banner’.
Ms Jones said: ‘We were excited for a weekend away and to go to the seaside but we were crushed when we arrived. I couldn’t believe my eyes.’
She left Kohan, 27, and children Tristen, six, and Laylor, four, in the car while she tried to sort it out.
‘I didn’t want my children stepping foot in there. I was appalled and upset as we’d travelled for two hours and now we’d have to find somewhere else to stay,’ she said.
Ms Jones said the manager told her the children were ‘too young’ to understand the name of the hotel.
But she refused to stay and booked into another hotel at short notice.
Mr Marshall defended himself: ‘You have got to stand out in a town full of hotels and guesthouses.
‘The Vidella had a bad name so we changed the name. People know we are a fun place. We are a budget hotel and if they don’t like what we are they can go elsewhere.’
But Blackpool councillor Ivan Taylor said: ‘It is inappropriate and in bad taste – we are a family resort and this leaves a bad impression.
‘Blackpool does appeal to all sorts of people but there are levels we should not fall below.’
Pharmaceutical company Pfizer also warned him: ‘He needs our permission to use our drug’s name and we have not given it.’
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Blackpool council wrote to Mr Marshall, urging him to change the name in the light of complaints which had been received.
Last week he told the Blackpool Gazette: ‘If they want I will change the name. I’ll cross out the V, add an N and make it the Niagra and I’ll change the slogan to “keeping you wet all night”.’
And that is exactly what he has done.
The cheeky strapline fits in with Blackpool’s cheeky postcard image but the council are expected to take further action against him.
The hotel’s previous owners John Downer and Neil Williams featured on the Channel Five series The Hotel Inspector In 2014.
