A Sobering Tale

“Bartenders don’t see too many teenagers flashing fake IDs at establishments with a $14,500 bottle of wine on the menu, so Mr. Weintraub stood out. Again and again, staff members refused his increasingly aggressive attempts to buy a drink, the lawsuit said, until finally, in 2021, the hotel banned him entirely. What happened next was at first annoying and then disruptive and eventually led to a series of events so bizarre and disturbing that the hotel, The Mark on East 77th Street on the Upper East Side, sued Mr. Weintraub, now 19, for defamation.” Things often get weird when underage people try to buy up. But not this weird. NYT (Gift Article): A Wealthy Teenager, a 5-Star Hotel and a Bizarre Defamation Fight. No, really weird. “The celebrity (Drake), who is Jewish, later complained to hotel management that he was disturbed to hear someone screaming about Holocaust denial as he tried to come and go from the hotel.”