NEW YORK – Faced with offensive behavior and discrimination by the staff of a well-known casino hotel in Connecticut, Atlantic Bank President Nancy Papaioannou spoke to The National Herald about her discussion with a waitress over the term “North Macedonia”.
In particular, as Papaioannou noted, the incident happened at the Mohegan Sun’s pool bar. As she told TNH, she was going to spend the weekend with some of her friends for the Lionel Ritchie concert as a birthday gift to one of them.
While they waited two hours for their rooms to be ready, and due to the excessive heat, they spent time in the pool. A waitress then appeared whose name tag included as her country of origin, “Macedonia”.
Papaioannou pointed out the mistake and began a discussion with the waitress, saying that Macedonia is a Greek region, and recalling the recent Prespes Agreement, according to which the former FYROM is now called “North Macedonia” with the new name being mandatory both domestically and internationally.
Then, as Papaioannou told TNH, the waitress left and did not appear again, and a little later one of her colleagues, who was serving Papaioannou and her friends from the moment they arrived at the bar, came up to them and informed Papaioannou – who noted that she had not ordered any alcohol from the bar – that the manager ordered that she not be served her other drinks (!) because she hurt the waitress’ feelings and made her cry.
“I did not order any alcohol, especially at noon and all the more so because it was 100 degrees, on Saturday. They suddenly came up to me and say they are cutting off the alcohol for me, in front of my friends and the people who watched what was happening, when I had not even ordered a drink, just ice water!” Papaioannou said.
THEY CALLED SECURITY
Papaioannou replied that she had not ordered alcohol, while stressing that she did not speak in a negative way to the waitress, and explaining the conversation they had had. In fact, besides the second waitress there was another worker, who also had a name tag that listed his country of origin as “Macedonia”.
“Later, to our surprise, somebody came out from security, along with three large men, and asked us to leave because, as he said, we offended the waitress and she cried. All this, in front of everyone there, who were watching the scene and, fortunately, they did not know who I am because their behavior towards me was embarrassing. I asked the man repeatedly to speak with him in private so I could explain to him exactly what happened. He refused adamantly, and in offensive ways kept us out of the pool bar – and I personally wanted to leave the hotel completely. After many attempts, my request was heard, but it did not change anything. They told us that we could stay at the hotel, but had to leave the pool bar. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the room they gave us, which had a view…of garbage. Their behavior was embarrassing, and I would like to inform the Greek community about what happened,” said Papaioannou.
The Atlantic Bank president was “deeply offended” for “the inhumane behavior” and “discrimination against her home country,” and according to TNH’s information, a lawsuit against the hotel may follow.
“I do not play in casinos, nor do I stay in such hotels. We wanted to give our girlfriend the tickets for the Lionel Ritchie concert because it was her birthday. I had no reason to leave. I asked the security guy to call me a car to leave; I did not want to stay anymore. My friends asked me to stay with them in order not to spoil our plans, and that was the only reason I did not get up and leave from the beginning. I have never been treated in such an embarrassing way before. Beyond that, however, it is a matter of principle and I cannot let it go,” concluded Papaioannou.
MOHEGAN SUN RESPONDS
TNH contacted the Mohegan Sun Department of Public Relations and Customer Service for their opinion on the incident and Mohegan Sun President and General Manager Ray Pineault responded with the following statement:
“I have collected information from members of our staff who were in communication with Ms. Papaioannou and her group during their stay. Mohegan Sun equally prides ourselves on creating a healthy work environment for our employees. In this instance, we found our international exchange employee visibly upset and we had an obligation to understand the circumstances that lead to her state. At no point did we intend to cause insult or embarrassment. Mohegan Sun prides ourselves on providing unparalleled guest service.”
Concerning the name tag, Pineault told TNH, “Mohegan Sun encourages our international exchange employees to proudly display their country of origin on their name tags. This was an honest mistake. Moving forward we will take steps to confirm proper name of place of origin and have corrected this employee’s name tag to North Macedonia.”
Please note that Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment is run by the Mohegan tribe and the Managing Director is Greek-American Mario Kontomerkos.
PAN-MACEDONIAN ASSOCIATION USA: “WE CONGRATULATE NANCY PAPAIOANNOU”
TNH contacted the Pan-Macedonian Association USA and its President Dimitris Filippidis, on the occasion of the controversy over the term “Macedonia” and he expressed his surprise concerning the incident. He praised Nancy Papaioannou’s attitude while condemning the behavior of the hotel management.
“We want to congratulate Ms. Papaioannou, who did not hesitate to speak about the self-evident history and to present the truth about Balkan History. Papaioannou supported us with her presence at the New York rally and did the obvious, but this is not the case today. We believe that her behavior should be that of all of us in every such case of provocative counterfeiting of our history. We should not hesitate to talk about the inherent Greek-ness of Macedonia and answer all those who underestimate our intelligence and obscure the historical truth. These specific attitudes by Skopje are the proof of what this disastrous Agreement has already produced,” said Filippidis.
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