As the coronavirus ramped up in the United States and several governors of eastern states ordered places of large gatherings, including casinos to close, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians were already far ahead.
“We had been talking about it with our tribal leadership for more than two weeks at that point,” said Loren Gill, the CEO of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. “Our leadership believed that we had to be responsive to anything that could come with the virus and realized the closing the casino was one of our options.”
At a meeting of a members of state tribes in early March, Gill says tribal leaders told other tribes about their thoughts.
“Our tribal chairwoman, Lynn Valbuena, told them that we were considering this because we had to keep our employee, tribal members and customers safe.”
Of course, since the San Manuel casino is on sovereign land, no order of any state government official could be enforced. But the tribe, always known for being leaders and doing the right thing in California, made the decision to close days before Governor Gavin Newsome put out the order for non-essential businesses to shut down.
While San Manuel is known for doing the right thing, they also wanted to do it right, according to Gill.
“We agreed to pay all our employees their full wages and benefits through the end of the month,” he said. “We need to take care of our employees and our tribal members, so that was something that took very little time to decide.”
Gill says that tipped workers will also receive a payment equal to the average amount of their tips.
“We know those people depend on the tips and it’s often much larger than their hourly wages, so we wanted to make sure it wasn’t an immediate hardship for them,” says Gill.
Gill says the tribe was also cognizant of difficulties in the community that would extend from a casino closure.
“One of the reasons we wanted to make sure all our employees got paid was to make sure that our community partners wouldn’t suffer,” he says. “We know that pay they receive from San Manuel filters down to the businesses in the community, and we wanted to keep that pipeline open.”
“We’re a leader in that we were the first to take the responsible step to close down,” Gill continued. “I also believe we’re taking the best leadership position in taking care of our employees and our community.”
No affected by the casino closure is the ongoing $500 million expansion project at San Manuel that will create a 17-story hotel with approximately 450 rooms and suites, a pool complex, a 3,000-seat entertainment center, and a spa and fitness center. The first phase of the project opened in late 2019 when a 2,400-space parking garage debuted.
But work continues on the second phase of the project, even with the casino shutdown.
“The workers are continuing to work full force,” says Gill. “Penta is our general contractor, which is constantly monitoring and evaluating the virus threat, so we’re not concerned about their safety. There has been no slowdown and we’re still anticipating an opening mid-2021, just over a year from now. We hope the project continues to go forward. We’re well planned and well capitalized, so we’re not concerned about the project.”
As for re-opening, Gill says there will be a lot of factors to consider.
“There are many data points,” he says. “It seems like the country is moving toward less gathering space, less meetings and less employees in the same location. We’re talking more about quarantines. We’ll have challenges ahead of us in the short term, so I don’t then any of us is ready to predict when we’re going to reopen. We continue to monitor city, county and state events and circumstances very closely. Those will influence our position.
“If we don’t feel good as we get closer to the end of the month and don’t feel there has been a stabilization, well then we may have to remain closed. We don’t want to but we’re going to take it one day at a time.”
But Gill says all companies are handling this situation differently.
“Everybody has been using this somewhat arbitrary 14 day closure,” he says. “If it goes longer than that many companies will be forced to make difficult decisions.”
