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What guests can expect when the Las Vegas Strip reopens
From temperature checks to plastic barriers, how casinos are preparing to reopen and welcome guests back in June.
LAS VEGAS – When Frankie Brown headed home after a hard day’s work at Circus Circus, she didn’t realize it would be the last time for months.
“We were expecting to be back by now, I was totally shocked. I’m like wow, it came in like a thief in the night,” Brown, a floor supervisor who has worked at Circus-Circus for 37 years, told Fox News.
That was back on March 17 when the Las Vegas Strip shut down due to COVID19 in order to help curb the spread of the deadly virus. But as the country slowly transitions to back to work, the casinos are preparing to reopen.
“It will be different. There will be a new normal. But I think we can work together to create a very ,you know, they've always talked about that only in Vegas [experience],” Gordon Prouty, Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino vice president of public relations and community affairs told Fox News. ”It will still be that experience. We just got to make sure that it's safe as well as fun.”
Chairs have been removed at slot machines and gaming tables to comply with social distancing protocols. (Ben Brown / Fox News)
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announced late last week a tentative date of June 4 for casinos to be allowed to reopen.
Each casino must submit a reopening plan at least seven days before its scheduled reopening that follows the gaming control board guidelines, including limiting capacity to 50 percent, social distancing measures, and enhanced cleaning protocols.
“Some people may cover tables, some people may remove machines and actually redesign the floor, that will be up to them and their plan should include that. But, we will leave it to them to ensure how they're going to actually properly, socially distance,” Sandra Douglass Morgan, Nevada Gaming Control Board chairwoman told Fox News.
Fox News was given an inside look at the safety and health measures Westgate is implementing as it prepares to welcome guests back beginning June 18. The casino launched the WestgateCares Program, outlining its roadmap to reopening and pledging to share resources to help fight the spread of COVID19 as a community.
Westgate team members and guests will have their temperature checked upon entering the casino. (Ben Brown / Fox News)
Each guest and employee will have their temperature checked at the door, chairs have been removed at every other slot machine to create proper social distance and plexiglass barriers are being utilized at the front desk and certain gaming machines.
Blackjack tables have been reduced to three people, hand sanitizer will be at each table and the dealers will be wearing masks.
“With the way that this has been set up, we have created a safe environment with the social distancing, but we’ve also done it in a way that preserves the Vegas experience and it’s fun,” Prouty said. “One of the most important things we believe in addition to the safety of our team members and our guests is that when people come here they still want that Vegas experience, they want to have that fun so we’re trying to make sure we have the proper balance of that.”
While some workers are eager to get back, others are still concerned.
“Our whole staff in general needs to be kept safe and needs to make sure all our standards our guests understand [and] lines cannot be crossed,” Michele Horter, a server at Excalibur said, adding that she thinks June is too soon to reopen.
The Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers, held a caravan protest earlier this month voicing their concerns and calling on the Nevada Gaming Commission to make each submitted reopening plan public. Most casinos, however, have made the plans public voluntarily.
“We want to have prevention to protect everybody. We want to have the tests, screening the workers and guests, check the temperature to protect the entire community,” Geoconda Argüello-Kline is presently the Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Workers Union told Fox News. “We want to have personal protective equipment (PPE) for every single worker, we want to have masks and gloves and the steps to maintain distance.”
In addition to Westgate, MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Boyd Gaming will all test employees.
Westgate is exploring the idea of using plastic dividers at slot machines. (Ben Brown / Fox News)
The gaming control board guidelines allow the individual property to develop its own plan on how to implement adequate safety and health measures, leaving room for flexibility depending on the casino. And while the majority of properties have outlined plans that seem to align with what the Culinary Union is looking for to protect workers, Argüello-Kline wants to see comprehensive legislation to address the concerns.
“We need legislation to say all this hospitality industry have to be protected with this type of guidline,” she told Fox News.
Alan Feldman, distinguished fellow at university Nevada, Las Vegas International Gaming Institute says casinos understand the magnitude of the situation and the importance of protecting the workers as well as guests in order to prevent another shutdown.
“If anyone is foolish enough to take their foot off the gas on the things that are going to make their employees or their customers feel better about being in that environment, they are risking the entire enterprise,” Feldman said. “The last thing that any of us need is to open a property and then have to close it, and then try to open it again, and God forbid, have to close it again, and by then I think it's over. So there's a lot at stake here.”
And while Gov. Sisolak’s target date of June 4 has offered a glimmer of hope in what has been a devastating few months for the Nevada economy, Feldman underscored that the process to get back to “normal” won’t happen overnight.
“[Because} the rebuild for this is going to take longer doesn't mean it's not going to happen. It doesn't mean that we won't at some point get back to where we were and or just get back to something that resembles whatever we call normal in the future. But it's going to take time,” Feldman told Fox News, adding that “a lot is riding on this.”
Las Vegas Casino Masks Requirements
The Venetian, Wynn Resorts Ltd., MGM Resorts International, Boyd Gaming Corp., and Station Casinos have all began accepting June reservations according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Casinos have opened in other states, but all eyes will be on the iconic Las Vegas Strip anxiously waiting to see if COVID19 cases spike again and how tourists react to the new experience.
“You've got to get this right. I don't know that the public is going to give you more than one shot at it,” Feldman said.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board isn’t reconsidering requiring facial coverings for casino patrons, but will if new COVID-19 cases reach the point of overburdening Southern Nevada hospitals.
Sandra Morgan, who is the Gaming Control Board Chairwoman, stated that she is not looking to implement such a change, while the Southern Nevada Health District’s acting chief health officer has issued pleas for casino customers to wear masks to protect employees.
“Per our current policy, all casino employees must be wearing masks. Licensees must have masks available for patrons and should strongly encourage patrons to wear them,” Morgan said Monday. “If that data changes and our percentage of positive cases increase, I would consider additional measures to ensure our health care system is not overburdened.”
Fermin Leguen, the lead health care adviser on COVID-19 in Southern Nevada, issued a statement Monday encouraging the use of facial coverings after seeing reports of fewer than half the people inside casinos wearing them. The Gaming Control Board developed its face-covering policies last month ahead of the June 4 reopening of Nevada’s casinos, after seven health care professionals, including Leguen, offered input on the issue. Leguen said Monday businesses “have a moral obligation to protect this community,” adding that mask usage would contribute to decreasing the spread of the coronavirus.
“Unfortunately, as more businesses are opening and people are beginning to resume their normal activities, it is easy to forget that we are still responding to a
pandemic and precautions need to be taken,” Leguen said. “I would ask our community and visitors to show the same regard for the public health and safety of the people who are providing you with services during these unprecedented times.”
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak said at least half of the visitors he saw when touring casinos on June 5, the day after casinos reopened their doors after 78 days of being shuttered, had masks on.
“I’m pretty proud of that. I think that’s a pretty good start,” he said at the time, while wearing a “Battle Born” Clark County Nevada mask himself. Sisolak reiterated that masks for casino customers would continue on a voluntary basis during Monday’s press conference
“Employees are all wearing masks and they’re going out of their way to encourage customers to wear masks,” Sisolak said. “They’re even offering incentives to get customers to wear masks” (though the governor did not cite any examples). Some of them are more successful than others.
“We’re going to continue to pursue it right now on a voluntary basis.”
While the Gaming Control Board has not ordered casino patrons to wear a facial covering, individual properties can require it and some have ordered table game players to do that. Caesars Entertainment Corp. properties require players at tables at Caesars Palace, Harrah’s Las Vegas, Harrah’s Laughlin, Flamingo and The Linq Hotel to wear masks when they sit down to play.
Many patrons have reported inconsistencies in the following of social distancing guidelines as per the NGC and the governors office as well as in the wearing of masks in casinos by patrons.
Many of the Vegas casinos such as Wynn Resorts Ltd. were performing temperature screenings and are offering facial coverings to guests as they arrive.
Wynn spokesman Michael Weaver said in an email “Late last week, we instituted a program to expand the installation of protective Plexiglas barriers between guests and employees to nearly all table games and any guest playing tables that does not have a protective barrier will be required to wear a face covering.”
Las Vegas Casino Online
The coming two weeks COVID-19 data likely will determine if the NGC begins requiring patrons to don facial protection, but for now it remains on a voluntary basis.
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