A bill currently passing through the Indiana senate that would allow hotels and guest houses to refuse accommodation to people who snore loudly is drawing protests from snorers’ rights groups and advocates of sleep equality.
The bill, known as the Peaceful Sleep Restoration Act, or PESRA, would give any establishment which is “wholly or mainly in the business of providing overnight accommodation” legal protection if they refused service based on well-founded fears that other clients might be disturbed by excessive snoring.
Lobbyists representing the hospitality industry say that loud snorers disturb the sleep of other hotel and motel guests, and this can lead to lost productivity when important business travelers fail to get a full eight hours of deep, restful sleep.
Santos Di Ploma, a spokesman for a coalition of lobbying firms who are pushing Indiana legislators to support the bill, told the Dandy Goat’s Equality and Diversity correspondent: “I want to say upfront that I have absolutely no evidence or research to support this claim, but we are telling anyone who will listen that snoring could cost the Indiana economy as much as $7 billion a year in lost work time caused by chronic sleep loss.”
“In fact,” added Di Ploma, “if we did have some research it might show that exposure to loud snoring can be compared to sleep deprivation techniques used on terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and CIA ‘black sites.’”
Tanya Gantry, a spokeswoman for the snorers’ advocacy group Snorers for Non- Discrimination, Openness and Rights Together — SNORT — says that the law is a “haters’ charter” and will lead to snorers in Indiana being forced to sleep in the streets and possibly being beaten or even killed by anti-snoring vigilante groups.
“Snoring is a normal human bodily function,” said Gantry. “Just the same as sneezing, coughing or breaking wind. You wouldn’t throw someone out of a public restroom because they passed gas loudly while defecating.”
Ironically, Gantry no longer snores herself since her nose was broken in a fight with an anti-snoring campaigner after a heated debate on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 show.