According to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the Culinary Union has sent Nevada casino regulators a tape and report purportedly documenting prostitution at the Tropicana. Why I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you! The oldest profession being practiced on the Las Vegas Strip? Next thing you know, somebody will be saying the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth. Oh, never mind.
A few thoughts. A) The local dailies not only got beat to this story, they continue to snooze; B) This is hardly the first time I’ve heard assertions that ladies of the evening are being allowed to ply their trade in Strip casinos — even at ones more upscale than the Trop; C) Would D. Taylor be making an issue of this if the Culinary wasn’t at an impasse with Tropicana parent Columbia Sussex? D) Isn’t this a case of suspiciously selective outrage? E) If the Culinary knew about criminal activity taking place on the premises of the Trop (or elsewhere), why didn’t it come forward sooner?
I’m not saying the Nevada Gaming Control Board should bury its head in the sand. But even IF these allegations should bear out, the Culinary Union doesn’t exactly have clean hands. Apparently if it can’t get Columbia Sussex to the bargaining table, it’s going to reach into its bag of Deep Dark Secrets and either embarrass Columbia Sussex into making a deal or try to run it out of the state.
What else — if anything — does the Culinary know about non-kosher activity at Strip and Downtown casinos that it’s not telling us? And why are whistleblower hotlines and secret dossiers only being produced when there’s a contract at stake? The Culinary is behaving like the worst caricature of a strong-arm union.
