Orlando, FL – Florida Passover Guests Left In The Lurch When Program Organizer Fails To Pay Resort Or Vendors

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    Orlando, FL – Guests at a Passover program in Florida faced eviction after it emerged the organizer owed at least $75,000 to the resort, vendors and staff.

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    The A Different Pesach program had promised guests would stay in private villas in Orlando with shared communal spaces, including a synagogue tent, and kosher food for the eight days of Passover.

    But after hundreds of guests arrived, it emerged that program owner Ben Atkin had not paid for all the expenses, and on Sunday some guests received eviction notices on the villas in which they were staying, The New York Jewish Week reported. The following day, resort told those guests that they could not use some of the common areas since Atkin owed money.

    Meanwhile, Atkin had left the premises and his whereabouts were unknown.

    On Tuesday, operations managers for A Different Pesach, Brian Goldberg and Dennis Ratzker, told The Jewish Week that they have paid more than $15,000 of their own money to cover costs. Some guests also offered to pitch in.

    This wasn’t Atkin’s first failed Passover program. In 2003, more than 450 guests at a program he organized at a hotel were evicted due to a payment dispute, the Orlando Sentinel reported.


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    4 years ago

    People should get the lesson Pesach belongs to be at Home.

    4 years ago

    I agree 100% with No. 1; twice, when I left home to celebrate Pesach, I had a lot of tsouris. In 1982, I made the mistake of not booking People’s Express for (then) a low cost flight to NY. Instead, I opted to drive. Who knew that the first week of April, that I would run into a large snowstorm in PA and upstate NY? It was terrible.

    In 1997, I fell for the phony advertising of The Tamarack Lodge, regarding Pesach. The hotel was in need of extensive repairs, and the heat didn’t work properly all week. Worse, there was a fire in the kitchen of the hotel, as soon as we started the first Seder. We all had to run out onto the lawn at night, where it was freezing. Some of the help at that hotel were not the greatest. There was a West Indian waitress, who was very cocky and rude. A guest told me that he heard her say those “f—–g Jews”. There was someone whom I met at that hotel, who was able to book the last room at the Homowack, for the last few days of Pesach, where it was much nicer. For another $1,000, I could have stayed there, and avoided all of the aggravation and tsouris.

    In summary, I’ve never been away for Pesach, since 1997, and I enjoy celebrating Pesach at home!