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Soaking at Caesars - The rest of the story! Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Giving Caesars Indiana Casino
(a Harrah's property) every opportunity to do the right thing privately, Mr.
Floyd Kibiloski (photo at right), who sat in a urine soaked chair at Caesars, relu In the bible story of David and Goliath, David won. In this story of David and Goliath, where is the proverbial stone to even get Goliath’s attention. It certainly has not been an article about the incident that was published in Louisville’s Courier-Journal http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007708200384, The Indianapolis Star http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070820/LOCAL/708200400, The Elizabethtown (IN) Examiner, and picked up by the World News Network, The Rocky Allen Show on 95.5 WPLJ FM in New York, The Bob & Tom Show, America's favorite coast to coast morning show, www.nbc5.com, ap.lancasteronlne.com, www.vegastripping.com, www.platinumplay.com, www.ticketwood.com, www.plazoo.com, obscurestor.typepad.com, www.blognetnews.com, forums.genvibe.co, www.congoo.com, www.bignewsnetwork.com, www.eurocazino.com, www.wayodd.com, www.blog-base.com, www.wral.com, www.wlky.com, www.wlwt.com, humor.netscape.com, elendil.schenkenfelder.com, www.netscape.com, news.myspace.com, www.pechanga.net, www.columbian.com, www.jourhnalhome.com, schansblog.blogspot.com, crock.com, www.donandmikewebsite.com, portal.myund.com, urbanscrawl.com, www.itsabove.com, www.huffingtonpost.com, www.daylife.com, www.townhall.com, article.wn.com, boardreader.com, www.news-sentinel.com, www.censor.com, www.gambling-news-source.com, www.bleskovky.sk, www.statenotary.info, and several other media sources. It appears that Goliath has won again. Mr. Kibiloski received a phone call from the Caesars/Harrahs' lawyer stating that as far as they are concerned the case is closed. At the date of this article, even though Mr. Kibiloski immediately sent a detailed report of the incident to the general manager of Caesars Indiana Casino, by certified mail, over five weeks later he has still not received a written reply to his letter with an apology, admission of incompetence, assurance that procedures are in place that this situation would not happen again, or anything else in writing from the Caesars/Harrahs organization. He has received phone calls from one general manager who offered no compensation at all, and then from another who offered a free one-night stay with two dinners. To send comments, or to contact Mr. Kibiloski, please send an e-mail to comptimes@aol.com with the subject line Caesars Urine Incident. The detailed story, with copies of e-mails sent to Caesars, is printed below. On July 15, 2007, around 6:30 PM, Floyd Kibiloski, a Diamond card member, and frequent video poker player at Caesars Indiana Casino, noticed that a lady sitting at the video poker machine next to him left her machine. Since Mr. Kibiloski was having no luck at his machine, he moved over to sit in the chair that the woman just exited. Immediately, he felt a warm feeling that instantly soaked his shorts and had urine running down his legs. Quickly standing up and not able to find a security person or slot attendant, Mr. Kibiloski tipped the chair up so another guest would not sit in it, then ran out of the casino to get some dry clothes and clean this offensive urine from his body. Stopping at Caesar’s Essentials, one of the casino shops, he was quickly informed that they had no shorts or pants available for him. He then ran to his car where he remembered having an old pair of sweat pants in the trunk. Upon reaching his car, he removed the shorts, used some non-antiseptic wet wipes to clean off the best he could, and then put on the sweatpants. Not wanting to take the 40-minute drive home while sitting in sweatpants with urine residue on him, he went directly to the hotel desk, explained the situation, and asked for a room where he could take a shower. While the young hotel desk clerk was very sympathetic, she had no authority to help so she notified the hotel manager, who immediately called two VIP hosts. The hotel manager then notified Mr. Kibiloski that the hotel was booked and there was nothing they could do. [Even if the hotel was booked, it was 6:40 PM, so it would have been rather easy to allow Mr. Kibiloski to shower in one of the rooms and have the bathroom cleaned before the guest checked in.] Remembering the pool area had towels, Mr. Kibiloski then asked if he could get a guest card to enter the pool area and use the towels there to clean up. Again, the general manager talked with the VIP hosts and refused saying, “We can’t just have you walking around just anywhere with a card. There is nothing we can do.” Very upset at this point, Mr. Kibiloski proceeded to the Connection Center for help. The manager of the Connection Center heard his story and said she would call someone immediately. This was at 6:45 PM. She got off the phone and said she was told that someone would be down shortly. Mr. Kibiloski waited there for 30 minutes, smelling of the urine, during which time the manager phoned again. Finally, at 7:15 PM, a VIP host walked up, with an attitude. Mr. Kibiloski did not know who he was at the time, or that he was one of the very hosts who refused to help him earlier. Mr. Kibiloski told the VIP host that he was angry and at this point felt like suing Caesars. Mr. Kibiloski demanded to know the names of the hosts who refused to allow him to shower, or even have a couple of towels to help disinfect himself and clean up. The VIP host would not give the names and immediately began to treat Mr. Kibiloski as if he were making the entire incident up and asked if there were any witnesses, and did he file a security report, etc. When Mr. Kibiloski explained to him everything that is written above, the VIP host looked at him and said, with an attitude, “So, what do you want me to do about it?” At that point Mr. Kibiloski said he would at least like to get some towels so he could clean up, and that the VIP host needed to take care of that chair so someone else does not sit in it. Mr. Kibiloski explained where the chair was located and told the VIP host that he tipped it up, like many people do when they leave a machine for a few minutes. The VIP host then told Mr. Kibiloski to wait as he walked through a door to the right of the Connection Center. About 10 minutes later, he finally came back and said the hotel desk had a towel for him and could not figure out why they didn’t give him one in the first place. He assured Mr. Kibiloski he would take care of the urine soaked chair. Mr. Kibiloski immediately went to the hotel front desk and received a bath towel, wash cloth, and bar of soap to use in the men’s restroom. It was now 7:30 PM, one hour from the time Mr. Kibiloski sat in the urine soaked chair. Mr. Kibiloski went into the men’s room to the left of the snack bar in the hotel area and was finally able to clean up with soap and water. Not quite the shower that Mr. Kibiloski would have liked but it was better than nothing. Doing the best that he could to get clean in the handicapped stall of the men’s room, Mr. Kibiloski brought out the soiled towels and asked for a bag for the wet towels and another bag for the urine soaked shorts, which were out by his car in the multistory parking lot. Housekeeping brought down a biohazard bag for the towels and gave him a Caesars clothes bag for his shorts. Mr. Kibiloski then asked the desk clerk to ask the hotel manager who the VIP hosts were that she spoke with earlier that would not allow him to shower or even have some towels from the pool area. She told the desk clerk to tell him she didn’t remember. When Mr. Kibiloski said to call the VIP host desk to find out, and he would wait for the reply, the hotel manager immediately remembered their names. At this point, Mr. Kibiloski was still unaware that one of these hosts was the very same VIP host that he spoke with at the Connection Center desk that treated him like some sort of lying criminal. Mr. Kibiloski was thinking of going home at this time, since he felt he had cleaned enough of the urine off with soap and water to decrease the biohazard risk to the degree that perspiring in his sweatpants on the 40-minute drive home would no longer create a more hazardous situation. Thinking about the VIP host’s attitude, though, Mr. Kibiloski wondered if he ever followed through with removing the chair on the first floor, as he told him he would. So, having concern for the other guests, Mr. Kibiloski went back to the casino. When Mr. Kibiloski got down to the first floor, about 8:05 PM, he asked one of the security guards on that floor if she knew if the chair had been removed. She said she heard nothing about a chair soaked in urine and immediately asked the cleaning crew if they knew anything about it. They said that to the best of their knowledge nothing was done about a chair at the video poker machine that Mr. Kibiloski had pointed out. He then told the security guard that if the chair had not been replaced then the lady sitting there playing video poker was sitting in a urine soaked chair, which presented another biohazard health condition. Soon a couple of other Caesars employees approached and the woman was asked if she would mind allowing them to check the chair she was sitting in. When she stood up, her clothes were wet from the urine soaked chair. It was now about 8:10 PM. This was totally unbelievable to Mr. Kibiloski. Not only did the VIP host refuse to allow him to take a shower, refuse to let him get some towels from the pool, refuse to admit that he was the host that would not cooperate with the hotel, and treat Mr. Kibiloski like some sort of lying criminal, he did not even bother to get the urine soaked chair removed from the first floor. This exposed multiple guests to this urine soaked chair for over 1-1/2 hours, and certainly soaked at least this one more Diamond card member who was very unhappy about sitting in urine. Even then, as this second victim was standing there with urine soaked pants, nobody seemed to know what to do. Feeling sorry for her, Mr. Kibiloski handed her what was left of his packet of wet wipes that he got from his car earlier. This poor lady stood there for nearly 20 minutes before she left the area. Mr. Kibiloski could not get her name nor find out what happened with her after this. Mr. Kibiloski immediately went home and sent a certified letter to the general manager of Caesars hoping that they would rectify this situation. After total incompetence on the part of the hotel desk manager and the VIP hosts who refused to help, and the possible criminal neglect on the part of the VIP host who left the urine soaked chair on the floor for other guests to be exposed to this biohazard condition, Caesars has refused to compensate the victims for their time, their trouble, their biohazard risk, their emotional trauma (wondering if they will come down with some serious disease), or any other inconvenience this has caused these guests. At the time of this article, which is being written over five weeks after the incident, Caesars has not even bothered to send Mr. Kibiloski a formal letter of apology in reply to his certified letter. All they would offer him was a free one night stay and a dinner for two at their steakhouse, comps that Diamond card holders can generally get for the asking. On Tuesday, August 21, 2007. Mr. Kibiloski, had a final meeting with Caesars' customer service supervisor and communications manager, when he was told the general manager was unavailable, which he summarized in the following e-mail message sent to Caesars.
To summarize the key points of our meeting this afternoon. I have always tried to resolve this issue privately and never intended for it to go public to cause Caesars/Harrahs any bad publicity. Up to yesterday, when the Courier-Journal article was released, I had not even discussed it with my own family members. On July 15, 2007, I had the courtesy of sending a private letter to Mr. Ed Garruto [General Manager at Caesars Indiana Casino], in hopes of taking care of this out of the public eye. In my letter, I only mentioned 5 things that I intended Caesars to act upon:
To date, I have yet to receive a formal written apology from Caesars stating that items 3 through 5 have been accomplished, nor have I received any financial compensation for my risk, time, and trouble. All I have been given is a verbal apology with a verbal assurance that this has been taken care of internally, and offered a free night and two free meals, comps that I have been able to receive in the past by simply being a Diamond card holder. At this point, it appears to me, and to many others who read the newspaper article, that Caesars does not care about the health and safety of their guests, nor do they step up to their responsibility in an incident of this nature. Up to this point, I have not attempted to profit from this incident. I have simply asked for some compensated play time at Caesars, an amount twice of what I spent in the 30 days prior to this incident. I have had no desire to take Caesars to court, cause Caesars any bad publicity (I tried to work with two general managers for almost 5 weeks to settle this out of the public eye), and have not spoken ill of Caesars to anyone prior to the article being released. For the past 36 hours, since the release of the newspaper article, I have avoided the television channels, the nationally syndicated shows, the hungry legal firms, and any other actions that might cause Caesars any more harm. I stopped by your office today to try, once again, before this goes to the next level, to give Caesars one last chance to do the right thing and resolve this issue while it is still relatively easy to do so. As I mentioned in your office today, I will not take any further action for 24 hours to give you the time to notify whomever needs to be notified in the Caesars/Harrahs organization that has the authority to make the decision to resolve this now or to let it go to the next level. I am simply trying to cover all bases before this becomes bigger than both of us. I sincerely apologize for the article in the Courier-Journal, not from the standpoint of it hopefully ensuring that policies are established to protect future guests, but from the standpoint of the bad publicity it brings to Caesars Indiana and, in turn, to all of my friends who work there. I sincerely hope that we can work together to resolve this.
Using his marketing class to discuss the issue that same evening, Mr. Kibiloski sent the following e-mail to Caesars. In my evening marketing class, we discussed this incident, and others like it, and I wanted to pass on to you the results and thinking that came out of our discussion. Whether in politics, or in business, when a person or organization is in error, the best thing to do is to admit the error, formally apologize, and assure people that measures have been taken to prevent the incident from happening again. A classic case is the tainted Tylenol from several years ago. This is exactly the response that not only saved their reputation but actually enhanced it. I suggest that Caesars publish a letter in the Courier-Journal that admits to mishandling this situation, formally apologizes to me and the other lady, plus any other patrons who may have sat in that chair and have not come forward out of sheer embarrassment, assures the public you have thoroughly investigated the breakdown in procedures and then outlines your action plan for further incidents. As far as my compensation, so as not to set a set amount precedent, figure out the amount of my losses for the 30 days prior to the incident and then credit me with twice that amount for compensation. As I mentioned yesterday in our meeting, this could be in the form of casino cash that must be played in the casino. This would give me some enjoyable time in the casino to make up for the crisis time. With this type of precedent, your future rewards to the guest for incompetence would depend upon their play at the casino. This seems like a fair and equitable reward system to guests who suffer such incidents. I pass this on to you because I still truly wish to help. I believe it is very important for Caesars to take some responsibility for this incident and compensate the offended guests in a fair and equitable manner, not by giving them a comp that they can get just by asking for it (i.e. room and dinner), as I have done at other times as a Diamond card holder.
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Send mail to
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ctantly filed a
formal complaint with the Indiana Gaming Commission. The urine soaked chair not
only soaked Mr. Kibiloski, but it was left on the floor by the VIP host for over
1-1/2 hours, soaking at least one more guest, and would
probably still be there
if Mr. Kibiloski did not follow up to be sure it was removed. Even though
Caesars was obviously incompetent in handling this situation, including refusing
Mr. Kibiloski a shower in which to clean off the urine, which left him extended
exposure to the biohazard risk, he was told
by the general manager of the casino that he did not deserve any compensation
other than a free room and a couple of dinners at their
steakhouse. Does this seem reasonable to you? [Note: Caesars Indiana Casino's third
party claims department did say that if Mr. Kibiloski contracted a disease he
could submit the medical claim for up to two years.]