[flv:http://flash.video.worldnow.com/klas/klas_20100302023638410B.flv https://queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com/wp/docs-null/2010/03/vegastaxiboard.jpg 650 400]
The Las Vegas Taxi Authority’s officer handbook, in the Exposure to Communicable Diseases section, which advises staffers how to stay safe when dealing with high-risk passengers, lumps in homosexuals with I.V. drug users and prostitutes as the types of passengers to be treated with protective gear.
“It took my breath away to read that,” says former officer Scott Lewis. “It lumps in homosexuals and gays with drug users and prostitutes. Drug users and prostitutes as we know are criminals. … My question is, what is a homosexual? How can you tell? Would you ask them, ‘Are you homosexual?’ and then stop, as it says, for your personal protective equipment.”
For the record, the Taxi Authority says the language was removed from manuals in June 2007, but at least four officers were given the old documents. Which is … great news for a city that actively targets gay tourists, and even better news for a local transportation industry that already sucks so bad.
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[LVN]
M
Vegas is a dusty sh*thole. I don’t understand why anyone goes there.
terrwill
What is it like 1982?
BG
Sounds like they are using the same “guidelines” as those used for blood donations.
TJ
Vegas is such a bipolar town. The strip is reasonably metropolitan and somewhat friendly to gays, but venture outside there and it’s like you stepped into the wild west (which, actually, you had been the entire time). As such everywhere outside the strip is a little homophobic.
B
“What is it like 1982?” When was it written? The
article only said when the nonsense was removed (2007).
David
I wouldn’t go near most cab drivers without “protective gear.”