Macau officials order hotel to close for six months over fire safety and malpractice concerns
Blocked exits and excessive storage of flammable materials among violations found at Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel in Taipa
One of the oldest and most infamous five-star hotels in Macau has been forcibly closed down for “posing a threat to public safety’’ and “harming the image’’ of tourism in the city.
In an unprecedented move, the Macau government yesterday ordered the six-month closure of the 500-room Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel on Taipa Island for an array of fire safety breaches.
The hotel opened in 1992 and has a chequered history involving gun violence, high-level drug peddling and rumoured links to organised crime.
De Senna Fernandes cited “serious administrative irregularities” at the hotel, and revealed that other facilities such as restaurants on the premises had already had their licences revoked.
It is the first time a five-star hotel has been ordered to close in the former Portuguese colony and comes at a time of tumbling revenues as the city attempts
to navigate the difficult path from decades of reliance on a VIP-gaming-dominated economic model to becoming a more mass-market tourism destination.
Such has been the severity of the slump, hotels have been offering discounts of up to 35 per cent. Despite this, many still face dire occupancy rates.
In 1996 the company which owned the then-New Century Hotel was acquired by colourful Hong Kong-born businessman, Ng Man-sun.
Ng, who is also known as “Gai See Wai” or “Market Wai” in English, founded the Greek Mythology Casino which operated inside the hotel.
In 2012, Ng was hospitalised after suffering a brutal chopper attack by six men inside the hotel.
Ng’s Hong Kong-listed company, Amax International Holdings, still owns a substantial stake in Greek Mythology Entertainment, the operator of Greek Mythology Casino, according to the company’s filings with the stock exchange.
In 2005, a bankrupt former Hong Kong tycoon Louis Lo Siu-fai was arrested in a room in the hotel – where he had been living for months and charged with selling drugs.
The same week, Macau police fired three shots to foil a robbery attempt outside the entrance of the hotel and injured a gun-toting Hong Kong man. The 40-year-old man was said to have lost all his money on gambling.
That followed a number of violent incidents outside the hotel immediately prior to Macau’s
return to Chinese sovereignty in 1999, when the city was wracked by gangland violence.
Additional reporting by Clifford Lo