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
Thomas Raines Thomas Raines Thomas Raines (August 13, 1842 – August 12, 1924) was an American lawyer and politician. He was born on August 13, 1842, in Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York, the son of Rev. John Raines (1818–1877) and Mary (Remington) Raines (1815–1889). He was educated in Canandaigua and began his career as a store clerk in Lyons. At age 21, he became active in finance as one of the organizers of a new bank in Geneva. In 1867, he settled in Rochester and became Cashier of the "Farmers' and Mechanics' National Bank." He was New York State Treasurer from 1872