'Borgata Babes' lose weight bias suit; judge says casino policy was legal
Cocktail waitresses known as the “Borgata Babes” have lost their gender bias suit against a casino that had a policy barring them from gaining more than 7 percent of their weight at hiring.
Judge Nelson Johnson of Atlantic County, N.J., granted summary judgment to the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City in a ruling this month, report Time magazine and the Press of Atlantic City. The Huffington Post noted the stories.
Johnson said the women had known they were to be part cocktail server and part entertainer when they took the job, and later signed statements agreeing to the weight-gain policy.
Johnson wrote that, from his perspective, “the term ‘babe’ is at best undignified and at worst degrading.” But the waitresses were aware of the term, he said. “Plaintiffs cannot shed the label ‘babe’; they embraced it when they went to work for the Borgata.”
More than 4,000 women applied to be Borgata Babes during the initial hiring process, according to court documents cited by the Press of Atlantic City. Job candidates received brochures saying the babes are “part fashion model, part beverage server, part charming host and hostess. All impossibly lovely.”
“She moves toward you like a movie star, her smile melting the ice in your bourbon and water,” the brochure said. “You forget your own name. She kindly remembers it for you. You become the most important person in the room. And relax in the knowledge that there are no calories in eye candy.”
Michigan is the only state that specifically bars discrimination based on height or weight, Time says.
