In Las Vegas, female cleavage is
a natural part of the casino-scape, what with the sparsely-clad cocktail
servers, V-necked hostesses and moon-faced tourists anxious to show off their
latest silicone enhancements.
But halfway round the world,
casino operators have a different view of the female form.
In New Zealand, a British tourist
was barred from a casino for upsetting fellow gamblers with her
“offensive” breasts.
Thirty-three year old Helen
Simpson was wearing a low-cut black evening dress when a woman staff member at
the Christchurch Casino told her to cover up or leave.
“She said I was wearing too
low a top, which people found offensive,” Simpson said. “I was highly
embarrassed — humiliated, absolutely humiliated. There were girls at the
casino wearing short skirts that I think are nothing more than belts.”
She has written to casino
management saying she left feeling “humiliated, discriminated and highly
embarrassed.”
Casino chief executive Brett
Anderson said he questioned Miss Simpson’s motives in contacting the media and
he would respond to her personally.
“The person on duty at the
time made a judgment call based on feedback,” he said. “It’s not so
much a matter of dress code than comments were received from people. I’m not
going to discuss this through the media.”
The Christchurch Casino’s dress
code makes no mention of low-cut dresses being banned, although anyone wearing
jeans would be.
It simply states on promotional
material: “Smart, neat attire is required at all times.”
Beware of those crumbling
commodes
Back in the U.S.A., the Trump Taj
Mahal Casino in Atlantic City has settled a dispute with a woman who claims she
was injured by a toilet.
The woman, Jean Ciocci, claimed
in a lawsuit that she was “thrown violently to the floor’’ when the
toilet she was sitting on broke away from the wall in her hotel bathroom.
“I think the Trump casino
behaved responsibly in terms of recognizing that the toilet wasn’t properly
mounted and by offering a fair settlement in this case,’’ Ciocci’s
Philadelphia attorney, Daniel J. Mann, told The Press of Atlantic City. Ciocci
will reportedly receive about $1.2 million.
Ciocci had claimed that injuries
from the fall at the Taj Mahal prevented her from avoiding more serious injuries
during a second fall at a Pennsylvania social club in 2006. She claims the
second fall left her permanently disabled.
Ciocci is 74 years old and weighs
more than 300 pounds.
It sounds like the toilet might
have had its own cause of action.