“We’re ready to go!” said Bo Mazzetti, longtime chairman of the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, which owns Harrah’s Southern California Resort in San Diego County.
“But we have to wait until the governor lets the county and the county lets the Sheriff and the Sheriff’s lets us open,” he said. “People say they will open on a certain date. Well, you’re not going to open until the governor and the rest authorizes it. Not because they have the jurisdiction but because they control the roads.”
Opening will be a gradual process that could take four to six months or longer said the chairman in an interview with Global Gaming Business. “We won’t have the revenue we used to have. It will be a gradual, slow process to get back up anywhere near what we used to generate.”
Harrah’s was one of the first in the county to voluntarily shut down March 16. “We thought we should shut down for public safety. We didn’t want to jeopardize our customers, our tribe and our own people,” Mazzetti recalls.
Later he got calls from tribes sharing that they had been sent letters from San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore telling them to shut their casinos.
“Does the Sheriff have that authority?” they asked.
Mazzetti, an old hand at such matters, got a copy of Gore’s letter. “What he did was cite the county health codes,” he said. “We’re different. First of all, we’re governments. He should have used that government-to-government relationship. He should have taken a little time to deal with us directly.”
Instead the Sheriff sent out a blanket order, citing the county health code: “Either shut down your facilities or I will shut it down.”
Mazzetti advised his fellow chairmen that citing public health codes wasn’t enforceable. “But what he will do most likely is to shut down the ingress and egress from the roads. There he has jurisdiction. So you’re better off to comply.”
He phoned the Sheriff: “I tried to get him to change his letter rather than using a health code that was unenforceable. I sent him a draft letter which he put on his letterhead and sent back to me. So I have a different letter than the other county tribes,” he says with a chuckle. “He was trying to be helpful. He was probably swamped by so many problems trying to address Covid-19 that this was just a little bitty area. He had the jails to deal with and I give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Now people wonder when the tribes will start reopening. Mazzetti says, “What people need to know is that all of the tribes have plans in place to reopen. Based on reopening that means social distancing, separation, no big crowds. All the safety recommendations that are all over the United States. Like spacing every other slot machine. We’re ready to go but we have to wait until the governor lets us open.”
They anticipate taking patrons’ temperatures at the door. “All various testing methods will used for temperature testing,” said Mazzetti. “There might be testing for the virus if there’s enough five minute tests available. The biggest thing around the U.S. is the ability to test. The minimum would probably be a temperature test. All that tells you is you have a temperature. You could still be a carrier and not have a temperature.”
Mazzetti believes California has a different—less virulent— strain than what hit the East Coast. He believes he may have been exposed when he was in Sacramento several weeks ago. “I had the shortness of breath without the temperature and headache, but nothing bad. That’s why I’d like to get tests to see if I had it.”
The key to reopening gaming and the non-gaming amenities such as restaurants and nightclubs, is patrons feeling safe. “People are first going to have to feel safe. Once they do they will go into those gaming facilities, restaurants” said Mazzetti. “It’s that safety factor. ‘Do I feel safe? Do I feel comfortable? Am I confident of my health that I’m ready to go out? I want to get out of the house. I want to go do something!’ It’s the individual thought process, I believe.”
When does his gut tell him casinos will reopen? “I think it may be the middle of May or the first of June,” said Mazzetti. “Based on how people are acting and what you see in the news.”
During the six weeks of closure the tribe has been generous to its employees. “It’s not just the casino employees who are paid with all of their benefits” he said. “We have 145 tribal employees. We’ve kept every one. A lot of tribal government employees work at home.” So far, none have been sick.
The tribe gave 8,000 pounds of food from its kitchens to area food banks in the first round and 4,000 pounds in the second round to Rincon’s elderly and handicapped.
Mazzetti sees the reopening as being gradual. “I think it will take four to five to six months to get back up to where we were. We won’t have the revenue we used to have. It will be slow process to get back anywhere near the revenue we used to generate.”
They are working with the state so regulatory fees can also be ramped up slowly. “We feel it’s going to take a good period of time to generate increased revenue, probably four or five months at least, and that’s hopeful that everyone comes back,” he said.
It all depends on patrons’ comfort zones. “That will take time.”
That includes live entertainment, at some point, “as we learn how to live with this virus. That will depend on the state and social spacing and confidence. It’s a strain of flu that we just have to learn how to live with and deal with.”
