A Playboy magazine photographer will not be allowed to screen Providence College students for a ``Women of the Big East'' pictorial at either the Roman Catholic college or a Providence hotel, officials said. Photographer David Mecey had planned to meet with Providence College students for part of a Big East athletic conference layout scheduled for the April 1989 issue, Playboy spokeswoman Cindy Rakowitz said from New York. Mecey, who planned to stay in Providence from Wednesday through Friday, intended to interview and photograph women in various locations, including the Providence Marriott Inn where he had a reservation. The planned feature would include nude and semi-nude photos. The hotel's name and number were listed on a Playboy leaflet and in a quarter-page advertisement to appear in today's edition of The NewPaper, said Anne Trumbore, an employee at the weekly alternative newspaper. But Stephen McCarthy, the hotel's resident manager, said that when officials realized Wednesday morning who Mecey was, they decided not to allow him to conduct business at the hotel. Mecey was told by hotel officials when he arrived Wednesday night that he could not conduct interviews on hotel property. ``If he wants to stay here, he can. He has rented a room and we are in the business of renting rooms,'' said general manager Rene Neidhart. ``But he did not have our authorization to use our name in any advertisements, and he cannot interview or photograph in the hotel.'' ``I'm not entirely taken aback, but I think that's pretty drastic,'' said Rakowitz when informed of the Marriott's decision. ``That's sort of eliminating the rights of the individual to make a freedom of choice _ but a hotel is private property.'' Playboy also was banned from interviewing or staying at the Sheraton Tara in Braintree, Mass., when it interviews Boston College students in mid-November, said Jeff Cohen, Playboy's managing photo editor. Some people who arrived at the Marriott looking for Mecey were escorted off hotel property by security guards, said McCarthy. He said several people, both women and men, were removed from the lobby and floors. Playboy had decided against seeking the cooperation of administrators at any of the schools it will visit, deciding instead to advertise off-campus and in college newspapers. Playboy had hoped to run an ad in the Cowl, the student newspaper at the 3,800-student college, but students and administrators decided against it, said a school spokesman, the Rev. John McGreevy. Officials at St. John's University in New York, another Catholic school, decided earlier this month against running an article about the Playboy feature in its student newspaper. ``I'm still confident that we will recruit our women,'' said Rakowitz, who said about 20 women were wanted for the feature. ``I've never come into a problem at a hotel. I think it's sort of repressing.'' Other schools in the Big East Conference are Villanova University, in Villanova, Pa.; Washington's Georgetown University; Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J.; the University of Connecticut; the University of Pittsburgh; and New York's Syracuse University.
