Card clubs in San Jose, northern California have moved out into their parking lots and into large tents under a city program that is allowing more business sectors to operate outdoors to facilitate social distancing.
The Al Fresco program is not limited to restaurants. It comes after seven months of many businesses being completely shut down by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The movement by the city’s two casinos, Bay 101 and Casino M8trix, came several days after September 1, when the city council voted 10-1 to allow them, plus business such as dry cleaners and art studios, to move outdoors.
This year, before the pandemic, the city could have expected to collect about $19 million. Instead its revenues dropped to $13.5 million.
This November city voters will vote on a measure that would allow the number of card rooms to expand beyond the two, and increase taxes on them from 15 percent to 16.5 percent.
Casino M8trix Vice President Robert Lindo told the San Jose Spotlight,
“Anything Casino M8trix can do to get our employees back to work safely, to generate some much-needed tax revenue for the city of San Jose, and to provide outdoor entertainment and food and beverage to our amazing patrons, would be spectacular.”
Bay 101 Vice President Ron Werner added, “There would be a reduction of the indoor gaming with social distancing and all the necessary COVID-19 requirements.” He added, “Frankly, we don’t know what it will look like until we see how patrons respond.”
Before the new regulations were passed San Jose councilman Johnny Khamis told the Spotlight “I just want to treat these businesses fairly. They provide a lot of revenue for our city — revenue that we will need for the future because a lot of the other revenues are not coming in either.”
The city faces a $100 million deficit over the next two years.
