can hotels dispense aspirin complimentarily, like razors or toothpaste?

Speaking as a former hotel front desk agent, I would also go with liability. We were told specifically that even for a guest who wanted a Band-Aid or an aspirin, we were to call the on-site EMTs. The theory was that the EMTs were more qualified to dispense the medical stuff, and if there was something truly serious going on (for example, if maybe you hadn't had a headache but instead an aneurysm and didn't recognize the symptoms) then they might have a chance of getting you the medical assistance that you needed. I recognize the limitations of EMTs in this instance, and I also recognize that most hotels don't have EMTs on-site 24/7/365. But it did serve to mitigate some of the liability (or so the front desk was told--and people are often unwilling to circumvent policy if they are told their job and a lawsuit are on the line if they do) my hotel faced. I'm sorry that this hotel was apparently stuck in a bind liability-wise *and* didn't have an EMT on-site, though like I said I don't think it's common for hotels to have them around as often as mine did. Perhaps, with the threat of a lawsuit on the line if something had gone wrong, you'll understand why no one was willing to slip you some aspirin under the table, either.

Hotels may or may not be liable for things that go wrong with medication they hand out based on their public liability insurance. Presumably the items they do currently provide to their guests are specifically covered under it, if only to absolve them of responsibility should the soap turn out to be full of cyanide or the razors not so safety afer all. So providing widely available painkillers may or may not be covered under the insurance. Checking whether it is and/or negotiating for its inclusion in the policy is presumably more trouble than it's worth, since it's not regarded as a standard hotel service and many travellers will carry their own and most of the time it's easy to buy them elsewhere. So I'd say that it's not because they're likely to get sued or that there's some kind of law against it, but that there it doesn't provide a sufficient return on the time and money to make sure that they (and their employees) are covered if someone does sue.

oaf > that would be two-thirds. The hotel was the Westin Harbour Castle.

The previous folks are right about dispensing. If someone comes in my store and wants an aspirin, I can't give it to them. If someone comes in and wants to buy some, well, I could do that. You're really not even supposed to have aspirin/tylenol in your workplace first aid kit, as you're dispensing medication to folks that way. You can get certified to dispense, it's not even very hard, but legally giving aspirin is looked at the say way as giving a shot or popping a naso-pharangeal airway. If you walked up to the counter and said "my hand is sore, can you give me my insulin shot?", would you expect them to help out? Sort of strange. This is in the US.

You're in Toronto, the largest city in Canada—of course you can get aspirin in the middle of the night. A search on the Shoppers web site for 24-hour locations (maybe Rexall has some, but their site won't let me search for them) shows locations at Yonge/College and Yonge/Eglinton (I'm assuming you're staying somewhere near downtown). If they were going to charge $10 for a bottle of painkillers anyway, you might as well pay for a cab to take you there. Side note: "Aspirin" is still a trademark in Canada, so the non-Bayer stuff is called ASA (or AAS if the French side is facing you).

I worked in a concierge-type role for a couple of years, and will echo what's been said above: we were told not to distribute tylenol and similar for liability reasons. I'd guess they were told the same thing. ...unless you were staying at the Hazelton Hotel, whose staff are (with some rare exceptions) just assholes.

Thanks for all the answers, everyone. I guess next time I'll be sure to pack some painkillers myself. (It looks like the closest Shoppers Drug Mart was about 2/3 km away from the hotel, nice of them to suggest that.)

I, for one, am allergic to aspirin. It makes my airways close up. Tylenol all the way for me. Given that I am quite not alone in this, I reckon that liability is indeed the chief issue here.

Part 2 of my question, if I may: is there any reason they didn't/couldn't stock it in the minibar, which also contains (potentially dangerous) alcohol?