I recently read that Planet Hollywood had agreed to pay the Nevada Gambling Regulators $750,000.00 for a wide variety of charges regarding Prive’ Nightclub on a wide variety of issues, from admitting minors, to hiring employees with criminal records, to physical and sexual assault. I’m going to be blunt on several of these issues so I apologize in advance if I offend anyone.
Nightclub and night venues inside casinos are joint ventures. In this joint venture both are responsible for the safety and wellbeing of guests. Tao Nightclub for example: employs Medic West to see any nightclub client that may have had too much to drink. All nightclubs require their staff to have alcohol awareness cards and Pure Nightclub takes this precaution a step further with regular alcohol seminars for its staff. As a Nightclub Security Host, I know the importance of not just dumping off clients into the casino. At New York New York we work closely with hotel security staff and onsite Las Vegas Metro Officers.
As far as sexual assault…well there is just no excuse for this in any type of venue whatsoever. ROK Vegas, Pure, Tao and several other venues employ both male and female security staff to deal with such issues.
As for employing people with criminal records…this is nobody’s business, but the owner of the nightclub. Security is not law enforcement. We do not work with children and in some cases, Clark County and Nevada regulatory organizations just need to mind their own business and stop trying to get a “piece of the pie.”
As far as assault, there is a right way and a wrong way to extract “problem” patrons from a venue. The trouble is, every patron that creates a ruckus and gets ejected thinks they were assaulted. Several weeks ago we had to restrain a violent patron and escort him from the venue where I work. He was released to Las Vegas Metro and immediately exclaimed that I had hurt his shoulder with the restraint I had put on him. When he showed the officer which shoulder, it wasn’t even the shoulder I had a hold on, and the officer just shook his head and took the patron away.
As to the charges of underage patrons in a venue, that is purely the responsibility of the venue itself and the venue should pay all fees and fines associated with such violations. Casinos are not responsible for all that goes on inside the venues. Casinos do have responsibilities to patrons once they have been escorted from a venue back to the casino. And sometimes nightclub staff does make mistakes. Overall, I know that the majority of patrons coming to nightclubs enjoy a safe and pleasant experience here in Las Vegas and that there will always be a few who will try and mess things up for everyone else.
I wish Prive’ well. It is a wonderful nightclub with some truly great staff. I hope that whatever its current shortfalls, it is able to make changes and comeback to provide the quality and customer service that its clients are looking for. And the rest of us have come to expect from a top tier venue.
