Carpet Contractor Accuses Camino Real Of Not Paying For Work

A local carpet contractor approached ABC-7 claiming he had not been paid for more than $5,000 worth of carpet work at the Downtown Camino Real Hotel.

The Camino Real Hotel has been in the news lately, accused of substandard accommodations and costing El Paso conventions. The city’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau maintains the LULAC national convention withdrew its 2013 conference when it couldn’t find “quality accommodations” for 1,500 people downtown. The CVB blamed the Camino Real Hotel.

Now, a contractor says he has problems with the hotel, too.

“There were wrinkles (in the carpet) and I guess someone had fallen,” said A&A Carpets Manager David Avila, who says he got a call from the Camino Real’s chief engineer back in August about a problem with the massive hotel’s carpet, which was gathering in areas. “He asked us for a price to fix it.”

Avila said he then proceeded to do the work, re-gluing carpet in several different areas of the hotel. He provided ABC-7 pictures of the work being done.

“I gave him a paper, everything itemized, how much it was gonna be and everything,” Avila said. “He says ‘we’ll get back to you with a check,’ and they never did.”

Avila says he followed up with phone calls to the Camino and by mailing the bill for $5,445.

“We tried calling them and we never got answers back,” Avila said. “So we’ve been in limbo.”

ABC-7’s Darren Hunt took Avila’s invoice to the Camino Real Monday and found general manager Rene Rubio in his office.

Rubio refused an on-camera interview, but called Avila on his phone with ABC-7’s Darren Hunt listening to the call on a speaker phone. Rubio then told Avila to come to his office Monday afternoon and he would give him a check for $5,445.

But when Avila showed up at the hotel for his check, he says Rubio accused him of being related to ABC-7’s Darren Hunt. For the record, they are not related.

Then Avila said Rubio told him he didn’t have any money so he had two choices: He could sue or take $1,000. Avila said Rubio ended up cutting him a check for $1,500 and, according to Avila, told him to come back next week for more.

ABC-7 tried reaching Rubio for an explanation, but he did not return the call after hours and by the time this story was published.

Rubio did say earlier in the day that the hotel is working towards improving its infrastructure, and cited improvements to its elevators as an example.