Every hotel in Las Vegas has at least one swimming pool and some have several. For a number of years now, some hotels have designated one of their pools as "European-style," which is a classier way of saying that women are allowed to bare their boobies. As far as I know, this is not the case with every pool or beach in Europe or even a majority of them, but I guess the term sounds more sophisticated than "topless."
I've never been to one of these, but I gather their appeal is as follows. Women like them because they feel freer and also because of tanning benefits. Men like them because the women don't have tops on. And some of each like them because it means there'll be no children in or around the pool, probably no old people, and possibly a general sexual ambiance. Some of the ads suggest (nudge nudge, grin grin, wink wink) such pools might be a good place to meet members of the opposite gender, making them well worth some hefty admission prices. Men, of course, pay more than ladies since the ladies are the show.
In Vegas, they like control and artifice. I could cite many examples but my favorite, and I think it's still there, is at the Flamingo. Out back, they have a little garden with live birds, including flamingos, and there are babbling brooks. To ensure that the brooks babble properly, there are hidden speakers that output the recorded sound of rushing water. Someone actually decided that just having a nice little stream of H2O there wasn't enough; that they could actually improve on a river.
In a town that does that kind of thing, it's easy to presume all sorts of attempts to control and better reality. So the rumor's been around for some time that attractive women are being hired and paid to hang out at some of those "European-style" pools, the better to get males to pay the steep entrance fee. A friend of mine who works at a hotel that has such a pool told me what he'd heard; that business there was falling off because few of the women who were sunning themselves, sans tops, were the kind of ladies that men want to see that way. So they hired some wanna-be showgirls (I guess) to just sit around all day and sun themselves. Nice work if you can get it.
Then, of course, someone took it to the next step. This is Vegas, after all, where the next step is always the next step. The Rio made a deal with Sapphire, a local "gentleman's club" (euphemism for "strip joint"). to have some of its employees drape their European-style pool…to in effect make the pool an extension of the club. This lasted several months…up until last week when several of those employees were busted on prostitution charges and the pool was closed.
Hotel execs are reportedly shaking their heads, wondering how such a thing could happen and I can understand that. I mean, you have men who come to Vegas with lotsa money to spend on having a good time. You have strippers lounging around them with their tops off. You have alcohol being served and daytime temperatures reaching into the hundreds. How on God's Green Earth could that combination possibly lead to prostitution? Who could have imagined it?
(And surprise, surprise: When newspapers printed the mug shots of the ladies who'd been arrested, none of them looked even remotely like the woman in the above photo, which the Rio used to promote the "Sapphire Ultra Hot Brazillian Style Adult Pool.")
So you're thinking what I'm thinking…about the scene in Casablanca where Captain Renault says he's shocked…shocked that gambling is going on. Me, I'm shocked that prostitution is still illegal in Las Vegas County. At a time when business is way, way down and more hotels are in trouble (the Riviera is reportedly not long for this world), they're probably considering it. Mayor Oscar Goodman has long been in favor of legal, regulated brothels but, of course, he has no power. The big hotels have the power in that town and they've got to be talking, discussing when the time might be right. It's the only attraction they could offer that you can't get at the new casinos all over the country.