Live Straddle @ Foxwoods

[IsaacW]

Ok, so I was at Foxwoods on Sunday and an interesting situation came up. I'm in middle position in a tight $2/4 game (my table selection sucked that day) and a loose-but-reasonable-postflop player throws out $4 UTG before the cards are dealt. The dealer screams out "LIVE STRAD00L!" as he's dealing, and I'm thinking this will be good to get this table going a bit. It's folded to me, and I look down at my cards and see A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], so I 3bet. Weak-tight player on my immediate right throws out four bets, and it folds to the UTG who looks at his cards and folds. It comes back to me and I try to throw out a 3rd raise for the round to make it 5 bets, and am scolded by the entire table. Eventually the floor is called and he tells us that the straddle counts as the first raise in the round and that I cannot make it 5 bets. So we go to the very ragged flop (something like 8 or 9 high), I bet and get called. Turn is another blank, I bet and tight guy folds AKo face up.

My question is whether the straddle counts as the first raise in the preflop round or not? Is a cap 4 or 5 bets on a straddle round? Last week I had a dealer allow 5 bets preflop on a straddled hand, and I'm fairly sure I've had a floor person allow it before. Anyone know for sure?