Raines law hotel. State statutes allowed that any business was considered a hotel if it had 10 rooms for lodging and served sandwiches with its liquor. Saloons quickly found a loophole by adding small furnished bedrooms and applying for a hotel license. Dozens of "Raines law hotels," often located directly above saloons, opened. As a contemporary source put it, "This offered a premium on the transformation of saloons into hotels with bedrooms and led to unlooked-for evils" (an increase in prostitution), as the rooms in many "Raines law hotels" were used mostly by prostitutes and unmarried couples. (In some cases these rooms
1900 New York state election 971 votes were cast for the only candidate. Odell was chosen to succeed the incumbent Theodore Roosevelt who had been nominated earlier that year for U.S. Vice President. All other incumbent state officers were re-nominated by acclamation. Comptroller Morgan died on the day the nominations were made. On September 13, the Republican State Committee met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and substituted Erastus C. Knight on the ticket. The Democratic state convention met on September 11 and 12 at Saratoga, New York. Patrick H. McCarren was Temporary Chairman until the choice of George Raines as Permanent Chairman. John B. Stanchfield,