A 24-year-old Pennsylvania mother said she was told by security personnel to leave the Casino at Ocean Downs in Ocean City when she began to breast-feed her fussy infant daughter in the lobby.

Though she had been waiting for some time in the lobby for her boyfriend to return with the car keys and security people had been watching her, it was not until she began to feed 7-week-old Lilly that Alanna Panas was told to leave because her child was not 21 years old.

Panas said she pointed out that it was freezing cold and raining outside and the security guard "raised his voice and told her to leave immediately,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Mechanicsburg. The guard threatened to bring a security van around and escort her to it.

She said she was being discreet and no part of her breast was showing, but security sent her out into the cold rain anyway. "I wasn’t disturbing anyone," Panas said. "I wasn’t even in the casino." 

She wrote about her experience on a breast-feeding website and received the support of mothers from around the world, many of whom went to the casino’s Facebook page to castigate its management.

Thereafter, Ocean Downs posted an apology on Facebook, saying: “The Casino at Ocean Downs strives to make our guests’ experiences enjoyable, and if any member of our team acted in a manner that did not promote that experience, we apologize. We will be reaching out to Ms. Panas directly to discuss her concerns.”

However, Panas said that the call she received from the casino repeated its stance that she was told to leave because her daughter was not 21, not because she was breast-feeding.

"They didn’t even apologize," she said. "They said the reason they kicked me out is because they saw me as a security threat."

The woman executive with the casino said to her that perhaps security could have handled the matter differently.

"That’s the first time there and I will never go back," said Panas, whose family owns two homes in the Ocean City area.

Maryland is one of 46 states that have laws specifically allowing women to breast-feed in any public or private location.