Used Booze

Big casino's recycled drinks

While the gaming tables at the MGM-Grand Hotel in Reno pulled in about $65 million last year, someone was busy trying to improve the house take on liquor sales. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms charges that between May 1978 and July 1979, 16,000 bottles of liquor were refilled with cheaper booze; not only that, but unmixed drinks served in the Ziegfeld showroom were recycled. Any liquor left untouched after patrons had ogled the floor show went back into the bottle for the next customer. Some of the drinks wound up with more mileage on them than the hoofers in the chorus line. Last week MGM paid $125,000 to settle the charges, presumably a permanent cure for tired drink.

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