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WENDOVER, Nev. — A Utah woman says she was humiliated during an alleged racial profiling incident at Peppermill Resort and Casino in Wendover last month.
Taylorsville resident Tammy Luu, who is Vietnamese, says security closed her account and banned her, saying she was "the Asian female," during Labor Day weekend. Luu said it wasn't until hours later that staff admitted they made an error.
"This is traumatizing. I cry every time I think about it," said Luu, who is the vice president for the Vietnamese American Community of Utah. "This is very humiliating and it really hurts my self-esteem because I've worked so hard and we've tried to do a lot of good for the community here."
Luu and her husband had driven about 90 minutes to Wendover to attend "Saigon by Night," a Vietnamese variety show hosted at Peppermill Resort's concert hall. The couple headed to the casino floor after the show, but Luu said when they handed over their IDs to get their membership cards, four security guards, including the head of security, were called over.
Luu said security told her she was banned from Peppermill and its sister casinos and that her account was closed because she had been involved in an incident on Aug. 15. She said none of these details were relayed to her when she booked a hotel room and bought the variety show tickets.
Luu told security she hadn't been to Wendover in years and that they had mistaken her for someone else. She said when she asked security to check their cameras to verify her identity, the chief of security took her ID and came back shortly after.
"He came back and he's like, 'Yep, Asian female,'" Luu said. "I'm like, 'Everything matches, like my name and address?' (He said,) 'Yep, everything matches. Asian female.'"
When she asked how she could clear her name with the casino, Luu said security told her it was out of their hands and she would have to call human resources the Tuesday after Labor Day. In the meantime, she could still use her hotel room but wouldn't be allowed on the casino floor.
"I was just so upset because I was all dressed up and everything for this event," she said. "I had to get babysitters and everything to make this work."
Luu and her husband then drove to nearby Peppermill's sister casino, Montego Bay Resort and Casino, to eat dinner. Luu said six security guards confronted them in the parking lot and told them they were trespassing. Luu and her husband went to a nearby restaurant, but she was too overwhelmed to eat.
"I started crying and then all of this fear overcame me," she said. "I don't know what this Asian lady did, but apparently they don't want her there. So now I don't feel safe staying at their hotel because something happened."
The couple checked out of their room but then decided to stay at the resort because they felt unsafe driving back to Taylorsville late at night. A staff member assisting Luu with the room called security to try to figure out what had happened. At that point, Luu said, security admitted they had misidentified her and told her they had reopened her account.
"I'm like 'I don't care about my account. I'm very humiliated. I'm very upset that you would treat a person, a human, like that,'" Luu said. "The guard and the chief of security, they were there the whole time and didn't really apologize. He just said, 'We made an error' and just went back to the office."
The resort staff did upgrade Luu's room, refunded the room charges and issued her and her husband meal cards. The cards, which Luu showed to KSL.com, totaled $200. She said security's response was to tell her again to call human resources the Tuesday after Labor Day to find out what happened.
The next morning, Luu unsuccessfully requested footage of the incident and filed a complaint at Montego Bay.
Luu said the assistant director of security called her that Friday after Labor Day (five days after Luu was banned). She said he told her that a group of Samoan individuals, not Asian women, were removed and banned after a fight. During the original incident, Luu said a security guard had told her a group of Asian women had cleaned out the casino and that's likely why she was being banned.
According to Luu, the security assistant director told her that because security was unable to ID the individuals, they went to the pit boss who gave them Luu's husband's player card by accident.
"That still doesn't make sense. (The card) has his name," Luu said. "I think they don't even know the real story. That's a sad part. So you don't have nothing in hand — no proof, no nothing — but you're gonna just accuse someone?"
Luu said her husband was at Peppermill on Aug. 15 — the date of the incident she was banned for. He remembers seeing two Asian women at the same table he was playing at, but doesn't remember any incident that might have resulted in a ban. When she asked the security assistant director about the complaint she filed, Luu said he told her some individuals had been written up after the incident.
KSL.com attempted to reach both Peppermill Wendover and its parent company Peppermill Casinos, Inc. multiple times. However, the day after KSL.com contacted Peppermill, Reno — Luu said she received a call from the casino's director of risk management, Michael Heward.
Luu said Heward apologized for the incident and told her that an individual who was removed from the casino had the same name as the person on Luu's account. Luu said her account is under her husband's name, Danh Luu, not her own.
"I'm very upset and sad," Luu said. "After you treat someone like that and no management reached out to say 'Hey, you know, we're gonna do better, we're gonna do more and these are the things we're gonna do.' That's the thing I wish they can do."
Luu said she's sharing her experience in hopes that something like this doesn't happen to others. Luu moved to Utah from Vietnam as a child and, although she experienced teasing in elementary school, she has never personally experienced that type of discrimination since.
"I really want to stand up and say something rather than, like most of my friends or family would do, just be quiet and let them keep going on and thinking this is OK," she said. "I wish I recorded them. I was just so in shock, I didn't even record what they were saying. But I am surprised that there's people like that actually — for someone with a title, with some power and control for a big million-, billion-dollar corporation like that to be treating a human like that."
The ACLU of Utah is unable to take Luu's case since the incident happened outside of state lines, and the ACLU of Nevada told KSL.com it does not currently have the bandwidth to comment on whether Luu's rights may have been violated. It has also suspended intakes of new requests due to "overwhelming demand" but hopes to resume accepting requests for legal assistance "in the very near future."
"This is bigger than me. This is my community, these are my people and I've been with the community for so long and I just want to set an example," Luu said. "Don't let people disrespect you. Don't just let things go. If it's not right, you should say something."
