Château Laurier hotel offers thieves amnesty for returned treasures

To celebrate its 100th anniversary, Ottawa's Fairmont Château Laurier hotel is offering amnesty to past guests who've stolen items during their stay.

The hotel is asking former guests and visitors to return the stolen objects, no questions asked. Over the years, countless coffee spoons, dishes, ashtrays, menus and doorknobs have disappeared from the building. With this amnesty, historical items such as Grand Trunk cigar boxes, Grand Trunk Limoges dishware and heritage photographs of celebrities made the hotel's "please return" wish list.

"We're not asking for people to return bathrobes they make have taken. We're asking for those unique items that have never been seen before," Deneen Perrin, the hotel's director of public relations, told Fox News.

"We would love to hear how items were obtained, but should the story be one that is better left untold, we will respect the privacy of the donor or lender," Perrin said.

The hotel opened on June 1, 1912, a few weeks after its builder, the railway baron Charles Melville Hayes, died on the Titanic. Back then, rooms were just $2 a night — some room packages cost more than $800 today.

Since announcing its guilt-free memorabilia search, the hotel has been receiving a constant stream of items, some accompanied with stories and others quietly dropped off. Apparently, most of the returned items come with amusing alibis.

"Everyone who calls says, 'Now I have something but I swear I didn't steal it,'" said Perrin.

Château Laurier plans to open an exhibit featuring the returned items as part of a retrospective of the hotel's rich history.