Home stay attack well planned: owner of Morning Mist

Home stay attack well planned: owner of Morning Mist

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore Aug 3, 2012 : Loretta Rebello, the owner of Morning Mist Home Stay in Padil, has stated that the recent attack on students celebrating a birthday in the home stay was not only “unprovoked,” but also “well-planned and executed.”

 

She said that the boys booked the home stay for their party at 1:30 p.m. on July 28, the day of the attack, for use from 2:30 p.m. Stating that she never gives the home stay to anyone unless it is booked well in advance, she decided to give the home stay to the students because they said that they wanted to celebrate their friend’s birthday in a nice place and are expecting friends from Bangalore too.

Since the home stay was booked just one hour in advance and since it is located in a secluded area, Ms. Rebello wondered how any moral police could come to know about the party. Stating that she charges Rs. 5,000 for a group of 12 – 14 people for 24 hours, she said that the boys promised to leave the home stay by 7:30 p.m., adding that they said that a few friends from Bangalore might spend the night at the home stay.

Stating that no one had used the home stay for the past 3 months, she said that this group of students was the first to use the home stay after May. Although she was not eager to give the home stay to the group, she relented because they appeared to want it badly, she added.

Regarding the tariff, she said that it depends on the number of people in the party, adding that she had once charged Rs. 40,000 for a group of 40 people for 3 days. The group wanted the facility for a wedding. Last year, she earned Rs. 1,21,000 from the home stay and paid 30 percent of it as taxes, adding that she has kept records of exactly who has used the home stay so far.

She said that she purchased Morning Mist Home Stay in July 2006, but started using it for commercial purposes only last year, before which the home stay was used by guests from the central government, finance corporation, and Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development. Stating that she had never faced any problems from culture police before, she said that she will respond to all the notices served on her by the civic body and the police department in a few days.

Revealing the history of Morning Mist Home Stay, Ms. Rebello said that it was called Kamala Vihar when she purchased it. She decided to call it Morning Mist because it was surrounded by a lot of mist in the mornings and later added the word “home stay” because she felt that the residence could gives guests the feeling of “home away from home.”

She owns four houses in the same compound, one rented by a French citizen, one by a state government officer, and one by a Korean. The group of students had their party in the vacant fourth house.

She also said that, although the place is called a home stay, it is not really a home stay, as the tourism department requires home stay facilities to provide food, something that she is not able to do at present.