Awake at 6:19 a.m.
I was awoken this morning shortly after 6 a.m. by a fire alarm. Clearly the alarm is intended to wake you up, so it is not gentle, it literally jolts you out of bed. Being on the top floor I was apprehensive, is it real? Is it a false alarm? I tried phoning downstairs to no avail. Got dressed and ran out only to be told in the hall to go back to bed, false alarm. Now these things happen, they are after all for everyone's safety, however when I called the lobby to ask what the cause was, I was told it was unknown. I asked if this has happened recently but the answer was "we are not allowed to disclose." Understood, so I asked to speak to the manager. Hold, hold, hold. Gave up. Called again a few minutes later as at this point the headache prevented me from sleeping. I was told manager would be right with me which really meant hold so long that I again thought of hanging up; this time i didn't. I expressed my concern for safety and asked what had really occured only to be vaguely told it was a 'false alarm,' I asked when was the last time this happened and the manager replied he did not know. When I pressed, I was then told 'well I have only been here a short while so that is why I don't know." I asked the manager who would know, he replied the operations manager; I asked him to please find out and get back to me as he seemed rather uncooperative regarding what I considered to be a safety concern, he replied he would. He never did. No one did. I called the fire department to ask about safety issues at the hotel. First thing I learned was that this hotel, in spite of the name and all its marketing, is not in Beverly Hills but in Los Angeles, so I was redirected to the Los Angeles fire department. The local inspector told me that in fact there had been 'quite a few incidents' in this hotel but they were mostly attributed to incorrectly placed sensors in the kitchen, the inspector was under the impression the hotel had resolved this but he would follow up. Since management never gave me a response i asked a member of the cleaning crew, he told me that this happens often and always at the worst time, he said, 'it recently happened at 3 a.m." I am shocked that management completely ignored my request for info and never replied. It is clear that the "I don't know answer" really means "I don't want to answer" as in the truth is not pretty. I will be cutting my stay short here. While most fault this hotel on lighting, which really is terrible, or staff attitude, which has room for serious improvement; or the gym, which is tired and dated and has no shower, steam or locker facilities unless you pay to use the spa, my main concern is one of safety and given the lack of reply I caution others.