Allow me to take on this all-important question of the moment in Atlantic City:
How hot should casino cocktail waitresses be?
As someone who cares deeply about the future of Atlantic City and the fate of the casino industry, there is only one answer to that question:
Hot.
Very hot.
Smokin’ hot.
So I sympathize with what Resorts Atlantic City CEO Dennis Gomes is trying to do, even if he can’t quite admit what he is trying to do. Gomes wants to change the image of Resorts as a tired old place where old people go. One step in that process is to ... um ... up the sex appeal of the cocktail servers. Works for me.
The problem is, Resorts recently fired 15 middle-aged cocktail waitresses because they do not fit the casino’s “body ideal or appearance ideal.” Seven of those servers are suing. My guess is they win. I’m pretty sure it violates some law to fire people because they are older and heavier.
And, let’s remember, a job is a job, and everyone needs theirs. Many of these servers are wives and mothers whose families depend on them. So as much as I’d like to say otherwise — as much as I think cocktail servers should be smokin’ hot — it seems to me that Gomes has to back down here.
As other casinos have done when this issue has come up, he ought to allow the older servers to wear a more sedate uniform than the garter-belt and minidress contraption (I like it!) that Resorts is implementing and let them serve out their careers. Some older casino patrons may even welcome the idea.
In the meantime, without saying it explicitly because that would be wrong, wrong wrong ... Resorts should make sure that every new cocktail server it hires is really, really hot.
Because it’s the firing that bothers me. Not the goal.
