To Celebrate 100-Year Anniversary, Fairmont Hotel Offers Amnesty To 'Thieves'

As it prepares to celebrate its 100-year anniversary, the Château Laurier Hotel in Ottawa is offering amnesty to anyone who has stolen something from the hotel over the last century.

"The amnesty part means there are no questions asked," Deneen Perrin, the hotel's director of public relations, told Gadling.com. "It doesn't matter whether your grandmother took a silver spoon and put it in her purse or if someone's parents maybe worked in the hotel and took something, we'll take it back."

Since announcing the amnesty in February, the Gothic French château in the Canadian capital has already received more than 60 items from people all over North America, reports Fox News.

Most of the pilfered items have been returned with some degree of stealth.

Some have come in the mail with no return address, while others have been returned in person -- most of them left discreetly at the front desk. Perrin told Fox News about one man who pulled up in front of the hotel and handed the bellhop a doorknob from the hotel's opening in 1912, before hastily speeding off.

Others have sent in old stationery, swizzle sticks, teacups, old brass keys, photographs and a utility knife from the 1920s emblazoned with the hotel logo.

"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 told the Ottawa Citizen.

All artifacts will be displayed in an exhibit that will run from June 1 -- the hotel's 100-year anniversary -- until the end of the year.