Smoking Gun; Motown Mayhem

We promised to stay on the case of the phantom rebranding of the Tropicana Atlantic City. Above you see the official evidence. There’s nothing sinister afoot. Caesars Entertainment simply got caught with its marketing pants down. It is a bit funny that the Roman Empire would change its Atlantic City letterhead but simply forget to rename the casino. Assuming that’s what was going on. And you know what happens to those who assume.

For its part, Caesars says it appears to be nothing more than a (bizarre) typo. They’ve looked everywhere and turned up no evidence of a rebranding. So that settles that. Although … it sure would make sense to withdraw the fading Trop brand from the Boardwalk and Laughlin, and replace it with the higher-performing Horseshoe one. You can go ahead and do that, Caesars. We won’t take the credit.

Make America Hate Again. A sickening scene played out at MGM Grand Detroit, an incident that reminds us how far we have yet to go as a country. Parent company MGM Resorts International likes to pat itself on the back for its diversity efforts. However, there seems to be a yawning gap between what MGM says and what MGM does. (Remember, this is the company that sued Mandalay Bay Massacre victims for having had the poor judgment to get in the way of bullets.)

MGM’s latest disgrace stems from a hate crime that occurred in front of its Detroit pleasure palace. A gay woman was beaten senseless—and then beaten some more for kicks—while MGM security stood around and did nothing. We’re going to omit the name of the accused perpetrator so we don’t have to go through all that “allegedly” shit. His family knows who he is and woe betide them for not having brought him up better.

The Texas man who is charged with the beating saw Celia Haueter (above) holding hands with fiancée Chelsi Way. The two were leaving a concert at MGM Detroit. They were accompanied by family member David Supal and his husband-to-be Zach Chearhart. Evidently the sight of four LGBT people living, breathing and exercising their right to exist was too much for the Texan and his equally drunk friend. They accosted the two couples in the valet parking area (ahem, MGM!) and began berating them with homophobic slurs.

The verbal violence quickly escalated to physical force. “I took three, four shots ,” recalled Supal. Having vented his Lone Star Hate, the perp “then walked away from the scene while bystanders and security staff looked on. Way followed him at a distance and called 911.” (emphasis added) Said Way, perceptively, “If security is there, I don’t know what they’re there for, maybe to protect MGM, but they’re not there to protect the people.” For its part, the company is cowering behind the Detroit Police Department, referring all media inquires to the cops.

Being afflicted with cowardice as well as bigotry and stupidity, the assailant vented most of his violence upon a woman. (We shudder to think of what he does to his wife or girlfriend, if any.) Recalled Way, “[Haueter] fell to the ground. She tried to get back up, and then that’s when he knocked her out, and she was unconscious for five minutes. After she was knocked out, he hit her three to four more times.” Aren’t you proud, fellow Texans? Is this what they teach you down there? It will be a miracle if this cracker cretin shows up for trial, since a lenient judge let him off with bail.

As Way says of MGM’s do-nothing attitude, “Who’s to say that couldn’t happen to an older person? And that person could die.” A good point. Maybe the victims of this redneck rampage should retain personal-injury attorneys and put a court room form of beatdown on MGM, which is getting all kinds of free publicity it would probably rather not receive. A casino that doesn’t protect its guests doesn’t deserve to have any.

We were going to report revenue numbers from multiple casino states (including Michigan) but right now we’re too steamed to do so. Stay tuned.