Wednesday night State Senator Ram Villivalam was joined by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and State Representative Mark Kalish for a town hall meeting with constituents.

Sen Villivalam spoke about legislation furthering protections for those working in the hospitality industry.

“Sexual harassment against service workers is an oft-ignored epidemic, with 58% of hotel workers and 77% of casino workers reporting some kind of harassment or unwanted advance from a guest,” Villivalam said. “Those numbers are absolutely unacceptable, and I decided to do something about it.”

The legislation would require hotels and casinos to have sexual harassment policies in place in addition to providing safety buttons that would alert security to the presence of an assailant.

In addition, Sen. Villivalam took questions regarding changes to the tax system in Illinois.

“It took decades of poor decisions to get Illinois in its current fiscal situation. Turning our finances around will be hard, but one way to start is to explore our options to close the corporate loopholes that exist today because quite frankly it’s not appropriate given our financial situation,” Villivalam said. “We need to also explore additional revenue sources that are going to be available to us such as sports betting and legalizing cannabis, and I look forward to partaking in these discussions with my colleagues as we close out the spring session.”