Ink stain: Casino hits brakes on tattoo policy
TOURIST WAS STOPPED FROM ENTRY INTO HOTEL
Lake Elsinore, California, resident Ryan Dannettelle was enjoying a trip to Las Vegas the weekend of July 24 as he has many times in the past.
In town celebrating his cousin’s baby shower, Dannettelle, 32, and his group, which included his girlfriend and friends from Las Vegas, were visiting various establishments on the Strip and downtown when the night took an unexpected turn as they tried to enter the D Las Vegas.
A security guard for the property stopped Dannettelle after his girlfriend and another female member of the group were allowed in, according to Dannettelle.
The security guard explained to Dannettelle that anyone with face or neck tattoos or women with low-cut shirts that bared their midriff were not allowed inside the casino on Friday and Saturday nights.
“We were walking down Fremont, cutting in and out of casinos, doing what everybody does, having a good time. He (the security guard) tells me they won’t allow anybody in with tattoos from the neck up, citing new dress code policies. I looked at him and I kind of laughed and said, ‘Are you serious?’ He said, ‘Yeah, ‘I’m dead serious,’ saying it’s a new policy, saying situations have happened here in the past and we just can’t let you in.”
After he was barred from entering, Dannettelle returned with his phone to document the security guard stating the new standards to alert his friends and family on Instagram about the tattoo policy.
“I was polite and I walked away,” Dannettelle said. “Then I thought nobody is going to believe me if I tell them this, so I walked back to the guy and I was recording and he could see I was recording and told him, ‘Hey, do you think you could repeat yourself one more time about your new policies?’”
Dannettelle said he never thought a situation like this would play out in Las Vegas, a place where people go to have fun.
“I was shocked,” he said, “because this is Las Vegas and I didn’t think anything like this would happen in Las Vegas.”
After Dannettelle’s video racked up almost 700 comments, with many also leaving messages on the D’s Instagram page, the resort announced that it no longer was going to enforce the tattoo ban.
The post highlighted new door policies that the casino said were put into place upon its June 4 reopening, including ID scanners, extra police officers on property, temperature scanning and a more restrictive dress code.
“In evaluating our policy, we determined that limiting face and neck tattoos was overreaching,” the D’s Instagram post read. “We made a mistake, and we have rectified it.”
The D owner Derek Stevens called the situation a mistake on the casino’s end and noted how quick the property was to reverse the tattoo policy.
“There were just a handful of things that we implemented and we always knew things were going to be temporary,” Stevens said. “Then obviously this one blew up a little bit and we quickly said let’s have a quick meeting here. To be honest we really hadn’t had much feedback on the (tattoo) policy at all, and then when it hit our radar, we were like ‘Hey, we’ve got to adjust this.’”
As a business owner himself, Dannettelle said he understands that individual properties will have different rules. Despite that, he was baffled by the situation as he said he has been inside the D before.
“I definitely felt discriminated against, and it’s a terrible feeling because I know I’m not the only one that’s gone through this,” Dannettelle said.
Despite the attention the situation received and the change in the policy, Dannettelle said the hotel has yet to reach out to him personally.
Stevens said a member of the hotel’s social media team may have reached out to Dannettelle, but he could not confirm whether that occurred.
A large portion of the comments and messages on Dannettelle’s Instagram account were from tattoo artists or tattoo aficionados who were upset with the situation and said that they’ve been through similar situations. Some of those who reached out were Las Vegas-based tattoo artists.
“After the video took off, I had a lot of Vegas tattooers reach out and were very upset because, I didn’t know this, but all these tattoo artists and shops came together and raised a bunch of money for the victims of the Route 91 shooting,” Dannettelle said. “You can’t imagine the amount of disrespect that they feel from this casino not letting people in because of artwork. It really is a smack in the face to them, and I totally understand why everybody is upset.”
Contact Mick Akers at makers@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.