I've heard of things getting out of hand at bachelorette parties, but this was ridiculous.
Last night, I went to a casino with a group of friends to celebrate the upcoming wedding of my pal Clare, who is getting married on Friday. We planned to have dinner, have a few drinks and gamble. We did not plan to get our photographs taken over and over...but we did.
When I arrived, I parked in the garage that was attached the casino and planned to meet my friends in the hotel on the other side. To do that, I had to walk through the casino, so I showed my ID to a man who had to have been almost seven feet tall (I am 5'9" and was wearing heels, and I still had to tilt my head to look him in the eye). He told me to step over to the side, where I would get my photo taken; they do this with anyone under the age of 30, he said. They also scan driver's licenses. I'm not sure what purpose this accomplishes, but I wanted to get in, so I complied.
When our group came down the stairs to go to dinner, I had to show my ID again, and the lot of us got our photos taken and licenses scanned. The other girls had come into the place via a different door, so it was only their first time, so I asked the security guards if I still had to since they already had my photo on file, and they said yes. Getting my photo taken once didn't count, because I had gotten it taken about 50 feet away at the other entrance.
After dinner, we went back up to the hotel for a drink before gambling, and when we re-entered, they tried to make us get our photos taken until we protested. I mean, come on. It's not that much of an inconvenience, but it's still annoying. Every time we moved into a different area, it seemed, we had to get our photos taken.
The funny part was that when we tried to take a picture of the bachelorette (obviously a bachelorette because she was wearing a sequined cowboy hat with a veil attached, and a sash that said "bachelorette"), we got yelled at by a man who looked strikingly like Tattoo from Fantasy Island. He was really mean, too; my guess is he doesn't see much action in at work and wanted to take the opportunity to show what muscle he has as a casino security guard to yell at a bunch of girls who are obviously just having fun. From what I understand, most casinos don't allow photography inside, and that's fine, but there were no signs posted; we didn't know. A simple gentle warning would have been more than sufficient. But I digress.
When it came time to leave, a friend and I went upstairs to get our coats, and, in my case, a bag of Party Lite candles I had purchased from another friend that she'd brought to deliver to me. We had our coats on and were obviously leaving, but to get back into the casino to go to the correct exit door, we had to show our IDs again and get our photos taken again.
The friend I was with at this point, JG, had actually gotten kicked out of this same casino a month or so ago for refusing to let them take her photo. The security guards told her it was state law, and when she asked to see a copy of the state law, they could not produce one. The head of security came out to talk to her, and when she asked about the casino's privacy policy, he had nothing to say. No explanation what would be done with everyone's photos or driver's license information. She refused to get her photo taken and was asked to leave. She sort of has a reputation for getting asked to leave places, though; she was once escorted out of the DMV as well. She kind of likes to be difficult, which is highly entertaining for the rest of us.
But JG had a point with the privacy policy. These days, identities can be stolen with very little information; how am I to know that the information from my driver's license won't be sold? Apparently I can't know that, because the head of casino security can't even answer that question.
And if it is it really necessary to take that information from a person, how necessary is it to take three photos of the same person in one night? Couldn't they just take one photo of you when you come in, and, if you leave and come back, scan your ID and see that you've already been photographed? If it's not you, they'll know, because you'll look different than your previous photo. It just seems like such a waste of time and resources to continue to photograph the same person over and over.
So I ask, is it really necessary?
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