My prediction is that at some point later this year I will write about a lawsuit regarding this topic. More than a dozen cocktail waitresses at an Atlantic City casino were fired due to a new uniform that management says the women didn’t have the proper look to wear.
Resorts Casino, located in Atlantic City, New Jersey, recently decided to change the costume for its cocktail waitresses to a sexier outfit. The new “flapper” costume (pictured to the left) was given to the servers, but sixteen of them were deemed unfit for the sexy new look.
The fired waitresses, however, say that the firing didn’t have to do with their physique or how they looked in the risqué outfits. Instead, they say age was an issue. The fired cocktail waitresses were all middle-aged, all ranging from the 40s to the 60s, which some casinos consider too old for cocktail waitresses. Whether they didn’t look good in the outfits because of their age is an opinion I am unable to confirm or deny at this point. I suggest they all send me photos wearing the outfits so I can tell.
The casino is moving toward a Roaring Twenties theme and decided to give the cocktail waitresses the skimpy flapper costumes. A union official, however, said that the only reason they chose the theme and those costumes is so they could weed out the older waitresses and appear more attractive to a younger clientele. According to the same union, the women were fired after a modeling agency that the casino consulted said they didn’t look good in the costumes.
So is what the casino did illegal? I’m not sure. Companies that use sex appeal to attract a customer base get more leeway when it comes to discrimination laws (think of the lawsuits one by the Hooters restaurant chain). I have no doubt that at some point one or all of the fired waitresses will sue, though. After that, we will see what the courts say about it. Honestly, I think the casino is just adding sex appeal to compensate for the fact that they have a lame and generic name. I mean Resorts Casino? That’s the best they could do?
