Lawsuit: managers of Altamonte hotel responsible for teen’s overdose death

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. — The stress from the past 24 months was evident on Joy Bardwell-Kittrell’s face as she sat at a conference table in her attorney’s office Wednesday morning.

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Clutched in her hands was a small pink urn filled with her daughter’s ashes. The same daughter whose face was on Kittrell’s shirt and mug that she often reached for, but barely drank out of.

When asked how she was coping, the thin wall Kittrell built for herself in preparation quickly crumbled.

“Unbearable,” she said through tears. “It’s a pain no one should ever feel and there’s just no way to describe it.”

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Two years and one day before, 19-year-old Amber Bardwell died after ingesting what she believed was cocaine.

According to court documents, Bardwell and her boyfriend were living with a maintenance worker at the Altamonte Springs Hotel & Suites in Feb. 2022 when they found a white bag in the floor of a stairwell.

They brought it back to their room and ingested the contents.

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The substance was later determined to be fentanyl.

Kittrell’s new lawsuit was filed against hotel management, blaming them for Bardwell’s death and saying a known situation could have been fixed well before the 19-year-old ever moved in.

“We’ve alleged in our complaint that there’s a drug culture that has been thriving at this hotel,” attorney Lisa Haba said.

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Haba’s lawsuit, filed in partnership with Shannon Snedaker, alleges that drug dealers operated with impunity on the premises and openly made sales, and paraphernalia was littered on the ground.

They claimed officers responded there more than 600 times in the year leading up to Bardwell’s death for various complaints, including drugs, and management sometimes hindered investigations.

“Even though the police are constantly being called, even though drugs are being sold openly and notoriously on the premises in the common areas… nothing is done to change it,” Haba said.

Haba said in addition to damages, the lawsuit aims to force hotel management to make improvements. She isn’t seeking to have the hotel shut down because that would force families to leave who may end up on the street.

“We hope that Amber receives some measure of justice, and that this lawsuit will ensure that The Altamonte Springs Hotel & Suites no longer enables and facilitates such egregious conduct,” Snedaker said.

Hotel management declined to comment on the lawsuit.

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