Densho Digital Archive - Takashi Hori - Yoshito Mizuta - Elmer Tazuma Interview (denshovh-htakashi

<Begin Segment 23>

DG: Okay. What about the Hotel Association, when did it start?

TH: Well, according to their records it was organized January 30, 1910.

YM: Before we were born.

DG: Why did they need a hotel association?

TH: Well, I think --

YM: They didn't know much Japanese so they had to get together.

TH: It's more or less one was first as a social group and then was to any information regarding business that they exchanged with each other to make it easier to operate. And as more people got into the business, they helped them, give them information, advice how to run it, or -- then I guess later on you had problem with the fire department, the health department, the licensing, different licenses and then in what? the '30s they started sales tax, wasn't it? Was it in the '30s or in the '20s? '30s I think, they had the sales tax, and then all kind of different problems start coming up. Maybe in the beginning there was no license involved, maybe there's not much taxes involved. All they did was collect rent and rent space, but then all kind of city, state, regulations start coming in and made it that, I guess, some people were operating without a license or running a boiler without a engineer's license and all that.

ET: One of the reason I think hotel was good is because for one thing you don't have to put stocks on shelves like if you ran a grocery store. Once you buy your sheets, they last almost forever so the money stayed in the bank. And let's see what else was there? I forgot what I was thinking about.

DG: You said that in the minutes there were twenty people on the first committee.

TH: First organizing committee.

DG: But basically through the years all the hotels belonged to this, right?

TH: Majority of them. I know after there were some hotels and apartments. Hotels mostly belonged to it. There were some apartments that did not join, run by Niseis or Sanseis, wasn't it? I think you had that problem too.

DG: And the meetings were in Nihongo?

TH: Nihongo.