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Owner of Hard Rock Cafe chain says 'Rehab' hurts image
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DUANE PROKOP/LAS VEGASREVIEW-JOURNAL
Dental students from Boston decided to spend part of their April spring break at Rehab pool party at the Hard Rock Hotel. » Buy this photo
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Updated: Sep. 24, 2010 | 8:58 a.m.
Are pool parties at the Hard Rock Hotel free publicity for the Hard Rock name? Or an example of "drunken debauchery" and excess that casts the Hard Rock name in a negative light?
Owners of the Orlando-based Hard Rock Cafe restaurant chain have sued owners of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas over its name, saying the casino's party image has damaged the name enough to justify ending a 14-year-old licensing agreement.
Lawyers for Hard Rock Cafe International Inc. said in a new lawsuit that the cable reality show "Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock Hotel" on truTV casts its brand in a bad light.
According to the lawsuit, the television show portrays the hotel-casino as a place that "revels in drunken debauchery" and other actions that most people would find offensive.
"The behavior depicted in the Rehab television program that is authorized, created and distributed by defendants is entirely at odds with the brand image of the Hard Rock marks (trademarks) and is likely to damage and has damaged the goodwill of the Hard Rock marks among consumers,'' the lawsuit said.
New York-based Morgans Hotel Group Co., a company entirely separate from the cafe chain, owns 14.2 percent of the Hard Rock and operates it day-to-day.
Hard Rock Cafe agreed to let the hotel use its name, but now wants to rescind the deal. If the restaurant chain wins its lawsuit, the hotel-casino would be forced to change its name and brand, which have been central to its strategy of marketing to music lovers and others who know the Hard Rock name.
The 110-page lawsuit, which was filed in New York District Court on Tuesday, notes that the restaurant chain was co-founded by Peter Morton. Morton retained ownership of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino when he opened in 1995 -- as well as the option to develop additional properties under the trademarks Hard Rock Hotel and Hard Rock Casino in the Western United States, the complaint noted. But as part of the agreement, the Las Vegas location also had to abide by licensing and trademark rules, including protecting the goodwill of the trademarks.
The lawsuit says the show portrays the hotel-casino as a place that "revels in drunken debauchery, acts of vandalism, sexual harassment, violence, criminality and a host of other behavior" that most people would find offensive, including patrons of Hard Rock restaurants.
The lawsuit is not the first time the Rehab pool parties stirred up controversy.
In 2009, Las Vegas police arrested eight people on prostitution and drug charges. The arrests brought scrutiny from Nevada gaming regulators, which opened an investigation into the program.
A spokeswoman for the Hard Rock did not return a phone call or e-mail message seeking comment on the case.
In June, Morgans hired former M Resort executive Joe Magliarditi as chief executive officer, replacing Randy Kwasniewski, who died March 9 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Review-Journal reporter Howard Stutz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The HRH may need to tone it down in the future...
Check out my LV blog:
http://jimmyhoofa-lv.blogspot.com/
..and 9: The Hotel Formerly Known as the Hard Rock Hotel..
@Jim,
Try some of whatever meds those partiers at Rehab are taking. It might make you a little happier...it couldn't make you any more stoopid.
Suggested name changes for the Hard Rock Hotel:
1. Harmon Tower II
2. The M. Lane Jackoloupe Inn
3. The Watchamacallit
4. Eden East (from the movie Couples Retreat
5. Paradise Bay Club Hotel
6. ACTION Inn
7. Toy World
8. McCarren Flight Path North Tower Inn
To: Vegas Digger & vegaslee:
City Center is far, FAR to big to support itself in our current economic times. As to the employment issue, 10,000 construction workers were out of work when City Center opened, and I'd be hard pressed to imagine that the same number of people were hired to run the sight. Your numbers do not add up.
Why did Randy Kwasniewski commit suicide?
I there something here that we don't know?
Anyway, the gambling industry doesn't CREATE real wealth. It only REDISTRIBUTES wealth, somewhat along the lines of the Obama Administration.
Because the Rehab debauchery will keep people away from Las Vegas and move it towards being a ghost town, the better all will be, I think.
Las Vegas deserves to be a ghost town, like Rhyolite and Goldfield. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rhyolite2.jpg for a picture of Rhyolite.)
I like to drink as wellas anybody but 'Rehab' is an insult to everyone involved as well as people who enjoy drinking. They have some old woman (the boss) who walks around like some whorehouse madam enabling her nit wit security people like they all have a respectable purpose. The cocktail servers are portrayed like idiots on the hunt for money and sex. This 'Rehab' needs to end now.
I agree with vegaslee, Jim you clearly have some issues, maybe a chemical imbalance perhaps? The fact remains, if City Center hadn't opened, our unemployment rate would be even higher. Further boycotting MGM as a whole does nothing to help Nevada, or more specifically Las Vegas. We seem to be our own worst enemy sometimes. Dem or Rep, we need to unite and leave the political BS behind and start doing good for all of the people, not our own self imposed agendas.
that show and its "rehab" are EXACTLY why i dont go to that casino to gamble anymore....who wants to be around those kind of people?, and whats up with that cornball guy who is in charge of the pool and all the waitresses and nonsense that goes on there?.....if that guy is indicative of the kind of people managing that place then that is ANOTHER reason why i wont ever go back there....i'm a guy who usually plays with between a 2k and 5k starting buy in at blackjack but not there ever again, now i'll go to the Venetian or caesars where i know i'll get treated right and not have to be around those kinds of people or management.
Rehab is nothing but the local hookers in bathing suits and guys that have obtained money by other means that working (get it?) as well as sucker male tourists that get conned into buying a $300 bottle of liquor worth $15 by scantily clad 'hostesses' that are basically no better than the girls in the pool.