Girls gymnastics team checks out after hotel's erotic art show

RENO, Nev. - A "swingers" conference at a hotel here fell flat with some fellow travelers - two Las Vegas mothers who were chaperoning a gymnastics team of girls 10 to 14 years old.

"Never in my 42 years of life have I seen anything like this," Linda Levy said Friday. "It's horrible. It's disgusting. We were never told by the Hilton there'd be anything like this."

Ms. Levy and Jo Knapp said leaders of their group finally persuaded reluctant Reno Hilton hotel managers to transfer them to the Flamingo Hilton downtown.

Women wearing see-through outfits with string-bikini underwear were parading through the hotel and casino Thursday night, Ms. Levy said.

Ms. Levy said hotel officials gave them a letter upon check-in Wednesday explaining there was an adult lifestyle convention going on but it would be restricted to the convention area.

But Thursday night "it was like a fashion show with them parading through the place," she said.

The Lifestyles Organization convention was using about half the hotel's 2,000 rooms, hotel officials said. Activities, lectures and slide shows - including an "adult marketplace featuring erotic art exhibits" - were in the convention area.

"The Reno Hilton hosts many large, high-profile groups and management plans 'business as usual' during the stay of this group," said Rhett Long, Reno Hilton's vice president of marketing.

Long confirmed Friday he had received a complaint from the girls gymnastics team and given the guests an offer to move out of the hotel. But he said the convention-goers had done nothing inappropriate.

"The worst thing they've seen are thong bikinis and those are not against the law," Long said.

Ms. Knapp, whose three daughters are traveling with her, said they had to walk past the open convention doors "with leather apparati hanging up" on the way to the hotel's children's arcade.

"There's supposed to be nude bowling tonight. So the bowling alley is closed and we can't bowl like we planned. And who wants to go bowling after that? Somebody should notify the Health Department," she said.

"At the pool, a cocktail waitress suggested we not take the kids in there. You should see the pool," she said.

The pool was dominated Friday afternoon by itsy-bitsy, string bikinis. One man wore a T-shirt that read, "Guess Where I'm Pierced."

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