Mayors of five Los Angeles-area cities with cardroom casinos all came together Monday, Sept. 14, to urge Los Angeles County officials to allow cardrooms to reopen outdoors.
L.A. County still has not given the green light to reopen cardrooms outdoors even though they have been granted approval by the state, with certain restrictions, since Sept. 9. Cardrooms represent big revenue, sometimes more than half of the general fund for cities whose mayors spoke out on Monday.
In Hawaiian Gardens, Mayor Jesse Alvarado said the city receives more than 70% of its funding from tax revenue generated by The Gardens Casino. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the city laid off nearly 40% of its staff and lost further tax revenue that came with close to 2,000 employees at the casino, Alvarado said. The city also reduced or eliminated services affecting youth and seniors, he said.
“Without the board’’s support, we’ll have to make more cuts to put at risk our ability to provide services and jeopardize public safety,” Alvarado said.
That scenario was repeated by each mayor who spoke on a Zoom conference call with reporters on Monday.
Alejandra Cortez, Mayor of Bell Gardens, said revenue from The Bicycle Casino typically amounts to 50% of the city’s budget, which has already lost $8 million in tax dollars since cardrooms were closed in March.
Gardena has lost $4.9 million so far, according to Mayor Tasha Cerda.
The Commerce Casino in Commerce accounts for roughly 40% of city revenue and employs 2,000 people, said Councilman John Soria.
“The Commerce Casino and the neighboring casinos have done their part to protect employees and customers,” Soria said. (Cardrooms reopened with lots of protocols on June 19, only to be closed three weeks later amid a surge in new cases.) “We were at 60% capacity with zero spread of the coronavirus.”
L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer did not offer a specific reason when asked Monday why cardrooms were not being allowed to reopen when the state already allows it. Instead she said the county would hold steady with its decision until the end of September when it can look closer at the data and the impact on cases after Labor Day.
“We’ve had significant spikes after the holidays that resulted in us taking some steps backward,” Ferrer said. “We want to avoid that happening again. We are going to wait a couple of weeks and look at our data and review it with the board later this month.”
Supervisor Janice Hahn said that while she was sensitive to the impact that business closures have had, she also wants to be careful about reopening, which she said occurred too quickly in June. This time, the county is taking a few weeks between reopenings to monitor the impact on case numbers, Hahn explained.
“I am very worried about the toll the closure of cardrooms is taking on the cities that depend on them for revenue and the thousands of workers who are out of jobs,” said Hahn in a statement Monday. “But the fact is there are still too many people sick and dying of this virus. We need to follow the advice of our public health experts to save lives and they are saying it is not the time to reopen card rooms.”
Supervisor Hilda Solis, who represents Bell Gardens and Commerce, said she supported allowing cardrooms to reopen outdoors with the proper safety precautions. Solis cited the devastating financial toll on the two cities and the loss of jobs especially among communities of color.
“Everyone should be aware of the risks that result when people of different households gather together during this public health crisis, even when outdoors,” Solis said in a statement. “But I believe with safeguards in place, operations of outdoor cardrooms can safely reopen for business.
Everyone should be aware of the risks that result when people of different households gather together during this public health crisis, even when outdoors. But I believe with safeguards in place, operations of outdoor cardrooms can safely reopen for business.
To date, none of the mayors along with California Cities for Self-Reliance Executive Director Juan Garza, who is familiar with the experience at cardrooms throughout the state, knew of a single incident where an individual was known to contract the coronavirus at a cardroom.
In guidance specifying how cardrooms can reopen outdoors (wearing face masks at all times, for instance) the California Department of Public Health acknowledged that data is limited on exactly where workplace outbreaks occurred.
“There have been multiple outbreaks in a range of workplaces, indicating that workers are at risk of acquiring or transmitting COVID-19 infection,” an overview states in a document providing safety protocols for cardrooms to open outdoors issued earlier this month.
Shaun Yaple, general manager of HUSTLER Casino in Gardena, said the casino was eager for employees to get back into the security of a job.
“L.A. County is acting responsibly with regard to public health, although I do not believe they (the Board of Supervisors) understand how much time, effort, and money has been spent to ensure any outdoor operation is safe for our guests and the community,” Yaple said in a statement Monday.
In Florida, where cardrooms have been allowed to operate indoors for months throughout the pandemic, cases have been few and far between, according to Roy Choi, who owns part of a business that caters to cardrooms in Florida and California. He said out of 350 employees at a cardroom in Florida, eight tested positive with no other employees getting sick, which meant the cardroom was not a vector of transmission, Choi said.
“This is with indoor gaming and more than 50% with no dividers,” Choi said about rules in Florida. “In some cases you have poker tables almost full. But they adhere to masks. And what we saw in CA in the time we were open is our cardrooms did a great job of enforcing hand sanitizing and masking protocols… Our plea is to at least allow outdoor gaming. Our employees and families and communities really depend on it.”
