looking through the bag when left in a public area is much much different than hotel room
in your name.

also maybe they searched to make sure there wasnt 40k in the bag, which might need to be noted so op doesnt say he was robbed.

further this wouldnt be a thread if op isnt carrying illegal stuff in his bag. all the hypothetical lawyering is silly. perhaps someone could reach out to mr. borgata today and see what his official policy is re bags being picked up in poker/unattended.

It sounds to me like you did two fairly dumb things: left dope in your bag and forgot about it, (which is pretty dumb, since it is still illegal, even if it should be and will soon be legal,) and then left a bag with dope in it unattended for almost an hour, (which is like asking for trouble and saying please.)

Putting all of the "right to privacy, personal freedom etc" chatter aside, I think it is probably a good idea that Security does search unattended and abandoned bags.

I'm sorry that I am not more sympathetic, but it seems like you brought this on yourself and are looking to absolve yourself of the consequences. I agree that the consequences are unfair but I think you need to deal with it and move on.

While I can understand why security searched the bag, it's a huge LOL to say that casino security was forced to call the police because of the presence a token amount of cannabis.

If OP were a blackjack whale playing $50/hand I imagine that security wouldn't have felt the need to contact the police.

I don't know what this means. Isn't it either attended or not? Can it be attended from another room? Is he attending it if he is thinking, "gee, did I leave some pot in my bag last week?" I'm sorry but this is silly. This sounds like libertarian claptrap. "If Security can search an unattended bag, then what is to stop the Bellboy from searching my checked bag, therefore no bag should be searched!!"

not to derail too much, but what does one do if security tries to detain you and they don't have that authority? how can you find out if they do/do not have that authority?

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/...t/blumenin.htm

So, I was wrong. In Nevada, they can detain you if they suspect you of a felony, but they have to be specific about what felony they suspect you of. if you feel you are being detained without cause, ask for the police (or call them yourself)

I'm surprised they bothered to charge you. Were they State cops or local?

Yawn @@@

you go to a concert or sporting event you get patted down and go thru a metal detector.

you fly you go thru tougher security.

you have no right to do any of these things.
it is a privilege and you don't have to go if you don't want to consent to these things.

a casino has large crowds and large amounts of money, you have no right to go there; its a privilege.

you want to talk about rights
what about the right of a person to go play poker without being subjected
to the stench of an illegal drug coming from the person seated next to them.

what about the right of the person paying $200 + a night for a hotel room and expecting it not to smell of pot.

Ricky Williams was given a choice play football and earn millions or sit at home and smoke pot.
being an addict he chose pot.

if you can't go 48 hrs without a fix seek help.

i would tell them get bent, expecting to not come back again.

never personally seen someone detained in a.c. but elsewhere its different.

Wrong.

That's what made the qualifier wrong in this context. Unattended *is* unattended, period. Unattended for long enough to warrant having your chips picked up off the game and get your bag searched is the issue. So the qualifier is unnecessary.

I can use smaller words if that helps.

In many rooms you can get picked up after 45 minutes if there is a list.

Also seen in poker rooms: People acting like *******s, threatening others. I once saw a guy get tazed at a poker table by the cops. So yeah, search that bag.

Don't like it? The law isn't on your side so I guess you can stay at the home games.

I already said that slippery slope arguments meant you were wrong. And there you go making one. And a dumb one too.

You would be wrong: It's cute that you can be wrong while still being so convincing.

"Anything they want" is not the discussion. More slippery slopes. The discussion is what they *did* do. And it was within their rights.

I got banned from Foxwoods for smoking a bowl outside the poker room. I signed some papers but was too drunk to remember what it even said. All they gave me was a business card with a number to call to request reinstatement. I wish they gave me a copy of the forms I was signing so I would have a record of what I agreed too. It doesn't feel fair that OP didn't get a copy of what he was signing as well.

You have a lot of strong opinions about what happened. If your objective is to have the ban lifted, you need to put those opinions aside and plead for mercy.

Whether you think their search was unjustified doesn't matter.
Whether you think the amount of weed they found was minor and therefore unimportant doesn't matter.
Whether you think weed should be legal in NJ doesn't matter.
Whether weed actually does become legal in NJ doesn't matter (it may matter in your court case but not in your Borgata ban case).

I'm serious. None of these things matter. No one at the Borgata is ever going to say to you, "We're sorry, we made a mistake; we shouldn't have searched your bag, and we shouldn't have called the cops based on what we found."

But you're not looking for an apology; you're looking to get reinstated. The way to approach it is to say (or write) to whoever is in a position to lift the ban: "I'm sorry. I made a mistake. I can assure you it won't happen again. I really enjoy visiting your property and have never caused any problems before. What can I do to be allowed to return?"

Be genuinely contrite. Remember, you're not out to win an argument. You're out to get allowed back in.

Good luck.

The forms are not for you, and they do not owe you a copy. Heck, you don’t even have to sign them, but it’s good that you did. You can write to the head of Foxwoods security, display humility and regret, and likely get reinstated after some months. I’m obviously speaking from experience here.

What if we promise not to think less of you or your overall point if you were to display any reflection on this claim? Would your ego still have you committing to it?

My dog wandering around Boston alone is not the same as my dog wandering around a park near me, leashed to me, or laying next to me and my partner in our home while we’re all sleeping. Each scenario demonstrates a different level of my attendance. In each, you grabbing her would carry a completely different meaning with a different result.

It’s really difficult to take you seriously when you insist that there is some threshold known only to you that flips an object from being clearly attended to clearly unattended.

A baby stroller can be unattended for an incredibly brief time and still roll down the hill into traffic or be taken away by someone. It doesn't take long for an unattended bag with an explosive device in it to go off yet still leave the person who left it time to be in the parking garage.

Regardless, that's not the issue. The issue is was his bag left long enough for the casino to feel justified in searching it. They did. And it was within their rights to do so.

I don't have an ego, I just happen to be right on the facts and I am able to articulate it.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

I want security to search an abandoned backpack.

When they find something illegal, they probably have to call police.

1) was OP logged into the system?
2) does OP have a history of playing at Borgata (which would be linked to #1)?

if OP was logged in a guest, then search away. the could be looking for a way to identify the owner.

but if (1) is met, what is the purpose of the search? in this situation 'abandoned' does not seem the appropriate word for the status of his backpack. unattended seems more appropriate, as reasonable people do not typically abandon money/chips and those were present also. more so, this isn't an airport, people leaving chips and personal effects (jackets/backpacks/electronics/etc) at the table while they walk away is common place; the casino encourages it to some extent. there is a reasonable assumption that a player who leave chips/personal effects for too long and the casino picks them up, the owner will come to claim their property.

if (1) and (2) are both met, it becomes even more egregious, imo, because they know he is a regular and he would presumably know the rules of claiming items or at least should be able to figure it out by talking to any employee who could point him in the right direction.

maybe this is all moot though if Borg has a policy to search any bag they have to hold under these circumstances, which honestly wouldn't surprise me.

I’m just curious, if you are there so often, wouldn’t they know you? It almost seems to me that the security team had it out for you. Otherwise, why get you arrested over something so trivial?

Also, the cops who arrested you must have had a bad day in order to do this.

lol the security team doesn't know who anyone in the poker room is, they are too busy picking their noses hanging out by the cage

everything that happened is super standard. don't have anything illegal in your bag and if you do, at least don't leave it out for an hour +

So when you give the casino your license and the casino gives you an mLife card and you use that mLife card to swipe into a poker table when you're playing and your name pops up on the table display in that table (and probably other places), you're telling me that the casino, and it's employees, has no idea who you are?

they dgaf. just because someone is swiped in your seat doesn't mean it's you or the person with that name even exists anymore

what happens when you leave your bag - floor picks it up hands it to poker room security. they record the time when it happened, your table and seat number

poker room security hands it over to lost and found where it's searched for guns, hello kitty stickers etc

if no bombs are found, they hold it until you come and pick it up at which point you need to produce a current valid ID (which may or may not match the card you swiped at the table, in which case you would have some additional explaining to do, but ultimately they will still return it to you)

The protections in the Bill of Rights applies to actions of the government; not to actions of private companies like the Borgata.

there are something like 500 people in here now. i couldnt name one security guard and im here 3 or 4 times a week...the reverse is true.

next what if someone is using someone elses card?

maybe instead of everyone trying to quote the bill of rights, or private property polices. maybe someone call mr. borgata and see what their policy is ? we can close the thread... and if some of us prefer the privacy of bags not being searched we can move the games to trop or ballys !

Tangential story time: Canada Day a year or a couple after 9/11. We are absolutely packed. Someone calls in a bomb threat, so security/surveillance is on high alert. Alarm starts going off, evacuation procedure commences, none of the frontline staff knows what's going on. When everyone is safely evacuated they explain that there was a bomb threat and a suspicious/abandoned bag was found. The bomb squad shows up, takes what feels like forever to get their robot in there and even longer before it blew the bag up.

Turns out it was cartons of cigarettes. There's a native smoke shop down the street.

And that's my story about abandoned bags in a casino.

<TL&Dr>OP's problems could have been avoided if they thought he had a bomb in the bag. Keep that in mind for next time.