Be proactive about foiling pranks at your hotel | By Jeff Higley

When is a prank not a prank? When there’s thousands of dollars of damage to someone else’s property. That’s when a prank becomes a criminal offense. Dictionary.com defines a prank this way: a trick of an amusing, playful or sometimes malicious nature. The malicious nature reference is where hotel owners and operators are paying a hefty price as a result of a wave of so-called pranks against U.S. hotels. Here’s one such report from the Orlando Sentinel last week. The summary: A prankster claiming to be a front-desk clerk awoke guests with a call at 7 a.m., told them there was a gas leak and they needed to smash the window of the guestroom with a toilet tank. The guests, including a county sheriff’s deputy, complied. They were also told to: