By J.J.C.
CANNABIS users around the world recently lit up in celebration of April 20th, 420 day. Although the origins of the link are obscure (the earliest credible story attributes it to 4.20pm being the time a group of Bay Area students in the 1970s met by a statue of Louis Pasteur to get high) the number, and the date, are so synonymous with cannabis culture that business travellers may want to take notice.
The reason is that 420 related items have become stoner trophies. Road signs are one target: road markers bearing the number 420 in Colorado have had to be replaced with 419.99, for instance. Hotel rooms have become another, forcing some hotels to phase out the room number altogether. This is partly to stop the stealing of room numbers but mainly to prevent the rooms being used as "hot boxes" for cannabis parties.
Room 420 is not alone in being stigmatised. Usually it has been room 13 or the entire 13th floor that have been omitted by hoteliers to soothe superstitious travellers. The Orwellian associations of Room 101 have also been uncomfortable for some, although not for all. Last year Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, held media interviews in room 101 of a Hartlepool hotel, while Reykjavik's famous 101 hotel recently put up Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
Film buffs may also seek to avoid room 237, made famous by “The Shining” and the title of its own documentary concerning theories about the film (although purists may prefer to avoid 217, the offending room in Stephen King's book). Other hotel room numbers have real-life connections. The girlfriend of Sid Vicious died in room 100 and Martin Luther King junior was assassinated on the balcony of room 306. Celebrity deaths add further notoriety. Janis Joplin (105) Jimi Hendrix (507) and Whitney Houston (434) are just some of the talented and famous who have met their demise in a hotel room.
Which brings us back to 420. Business travellers in America, especially where cannabis use is legal or decriminalised, may notice that room 420 is no longer on offer. Where there is a room 420 they should probably avoid it as well as neighbouring rooms like 418, 419, 421 and 422. Noise travels.
