Feb. 7, 2003 - Angry members of Philadelphia's $3 billion a year hospitality industry added their voices to the shouting at the Convention Center yesterday, demanding to meet with elected officials and threatening legal action if their timeline is not met. 

Leaders of three groups representing 56,000 tourism, hotel, restaurant and related workers spoke in a sidewalk rally on Market Street, complaining that the center's board Monday elected two leaders who lack hospitality experience: City Councilman Michael Nutter as chairman and board member Albert Mezzaroba as chief executive officer. 

"We have resolved to bring pressure," said A. Bruce Crawley, chairman of the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors' Bureau. 

He demanded that Gov. Rendell, Mayor Street, Pennsylvania House majority leader John Perzel and state Rep. Dwight Evans sit down with hospitality leaders next week. Then, by Feb. 24, Crawley wants officials to develop a plan to hire professional managers and implement recommendations in a June 2002 outside study that called the center's labor problems "the worst encountered anywhere in the country." 

If the deadline is not met, he said, the industry groups would consider suing on the grounds that the CEO was not elected appropriately. 

Crawley said the groups were not opposed to Nutter as chairman, but they demanded hospitality experience of the CEO and the unfilled position of chief operating officer. 

Bernard Guet, president of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association, said city hotel occupancy was down in part due to falling convention center visits. Every percentage point in the occupancy rate that local hotels lose jeopardizes 800 jobs, he said. 

He said hotel owners, urged on in part by Rendell when he was mayor, have increased capacity dramatically to accommodate Convention Center business. During the center's 10 years it has been open, capacity has doubled to about 12,000 rooms. 

Immediately after the rally, Nutter announced his own get-together: He invited all interested parties, including unions, elected officials and business representatives, to make presentations at the Feb. 19 board meeting. 

"I expect it to be a very long meeting," he said. 

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(c) 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.