A politician from Florida has been forced to resign after she allegedly checked out of a hotel room leaving the room stinking of marijuana.
Kim O’Connor, 70, an an elected supervisor with the Hillsborough Soil and Water Conservation District near Tampa, had been staying overnight at a hotel in Okeechobee.
However, staff at the Holiday Inn Express hotel claimed O’Connor, a candidate for Hillsborough County Commission, smelled strongly of marijuana.
Kim O’Connor, 70, was accused of smoking marijuana in a hotel room while on an official visit as part of the Hillsborough Soil and Water Conservation District
When housekeeping staff went to check on her room, they allege that marijuana was found on the bed and the emtire place had a stench of the drug.
The Holiday Inn Express & Suites then demanded O’Connor and the district pay an extra $500 cleaning fee to freshen up the room.
The hotel claim that the stench of marijuana was so pungent, the hotel ended up having to hire a professional cleaning firm and use commercial fans to vent out the room for three days.
When the district met again, O’Connor was asked about the allegations but she denied smoking the drug.
The elected supervisor, seen far right, has since resigned from her post as a result
Fellow board members then said that that if she did not resign they would ask the Governor to remove her from office but agreed that the official minutes would record only her resignation and not the reason now.
But now, the allegations have been made public, O’Connor claims that the story is ‘unfounded.’
‘I would never smoke in a motel room,’ she told board members according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Nevertheless, O’Connor had admitted that she does use the drug occasionally but has maintained she did not smoke pot during the working trip, nor while she was inside the hotel room.
O’Connor said the hotel was being renovated and yellow tape was on her door. Maintenance workers were coming and going, she said, implying that they might be responsible.
O’Connor claims that the stench of pot had nothing to do with her and is blaming other maintenance workers on the floor where she stayed
‘I didn’t have it; I didn’t smoke it,’ she said. ‘Whatever they smelled or saw wasn’t me.’
‘The hotel was very upset,’ District executive director Betty Jo Tompkins told board members at the June 13 meeting. ‘The room had been checked by multiple people, and there was an issue in the room.’
When O’Connor checked out, the hotel demanded she pay the $500 fine immediately but Tompkins managed to persuade hotel managers not to bill her credit card in the hope of coming to some sort of resolution.
The hotel has since confirmed that since the June 2018 stay, the fine has not yet been paid but the property says they will be will be pursuing her.
O’Connor is a retired lawyer and was elected as supervisor in 2016. State records show O’Connor was arrested in 1997 in Jacksonville for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia but the charges were dropped.
Hotel management claim O’Connor still owes $500 to pay for the deep cleaning that had to take place in order to freshen the room up and remove the smell