Elaine Lam has been a regular at The Gardens Casino for the past 18 years, driving from her home in Westminster to Hawaiian Gardens nearly every day to commune with fellow card players. Lam is one who seeks out social interactions and, as she tells it, would go stir-crazy sitting at home. So she was devastated to learn that card rooms in Los Angeles County have again been ordered to shut down in response to the unrelenting number of new coronavirus cases.
“I can’t stay home. I stay home, I go crazy,” she said during a break in between games on Sunday, Nov. 29, hours before the casino was set to shut down operations again for at least three weeks.
Related: Here are Monday’s new LA County coronavirus restrictions at a glance
The shutdown is part of a stricter, county-issued stay-at-home order that starts Monday and will last through at least Dec. 20, marking the third time this year that card rooms have had to shutter their doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest order is not only a hardship or disappointment for employees and patrons, but also for the host cities who have lost millions of dollars in tax revenues as a result of card rooms being shut down, representatives for the casinos industry say.
For example, the city of Hawaiian Garden collects about 70% of its tax revenues from The Gardens Casino, but with the business being shut down or operating at reduced capacity for more than eight months, the city has lost more than $10 million in revenues so far this year, said Keith Sharp, general counsel for the casino. The hit to the city’s coffers means employee layoffs and reductions or eliminations in youth and senior programs, police services, transportation options, infrastructure improvements and other service cuts, Hawaiian Gardens officials have said.
Similarly, The Commerce casino accounts for about 40% of the city of Commerce’s revenues. John Griffo, director of business development for The Commerce, said the city has lost more than $12 million in revenue from the casino this year. This loss, he said, will also negatively impact the city’s youth and senior programs as well as its library services.
Officials for the cities of Commerce, Hawaiian Gardens and Bell Gardens, which is home to The Bicycle Hotel & Casino, are scheduled to hold a news conference Monday morning urging county officials to permit outdoor gaming to continue.
Barbara Ferrer, the county’s public health director, said Friday she understood how burdensome the restrictions have been but said it was critical to take measures to prevent the virus from spreading.
“We know we are asking a lot from so many who have been sacrificing for months on end,” she said, “and we hope that L.A. County residents continue following Public Health safety measures that we know can slow the spread. Acting with collective urgency right now is essential if we want to put a stop to this surge.”
Card rooms first shut down in mid-March at the start of the pandemic. After they were allowed to resume operations briefly in June at 50% capacity, card rooms were shut down again a few weeks later amid a surge in coronavirus cases before being allowed to reopen outdoors in late September. Local card rooms have spent millions of dollars setting up tents and other infrastructure to operate outdoors, according to staff.
But on Friday, county health officials announced a stricter stay-at-home order banning most public and private gatherings. In other words, card rooms must shut down for the third time this year.
During normal times, both The Commerce and The Gardens Casino operate 24/7, 365 days a year. Before this year, The Commerce had only shut down one other time in its 37-year history — for one night after an earthquake in the late 1980s, Griffo said. Sharp could not recall any other time in the 23 years that The Gardens Casino has operated when the business had gone dark.
That all changed in 2020.
Before the pandemic, The Commerce employed about 2,500 employees. Currently, it has just under 1,000 employees on its payroll, though most are expected to be furloughed with this latest closure, Griffo said.
The Gardens Casino, meanwhile, saw its pool of employees shrink from about 2,000 before the pandemic to 600 this week, Sharp said. He estimates overall revenues will be down 85% by the end of the year.
Both Griffo and Sharp said the casino industry recognizes the need to take the pandemic seriously, but they believe local card rooms have been practicing stringent safety protocols and shouldn’t be forced to close.
At both casinos, patrons get their temperatures checked at the entrance, where sanitation or handwashing stations are set up, 6-foot plexiglass dividers have been erected between the players and card dealers, patrons must keep their masks on at all times on the floor, and no food or drink is ever permitted at the tables. Areas are cleaned when one player gets up and before another player sits down, and cards and chips are also frequently sanitized or replaced, representatives for the casinos say. And at The Gardens Casino, many of the games are now touchless.
“Players are safer at card rooms than at retailers,” Griffo said. “We’ve done everything we can to make it safe for the customers or our employees.”
Industry representatives say they’re not aware of card rooms being the source of COVID-19 transmissions and have pressed county officials for data to show otherwise.
Paul Tesoro, of Los Angeles, has been going to card rooms about five times per week for the past 20 years. He said government officials should treat residents like adults who can make up their own minds whether they feel safe spending time in casinos.
“We know the risks,” he said, gesturing toward everyone at his table at The Commons while noting that all were wearing masks. “Government should not constrict what people want to do.”
Garden Grove resident Nghi Nguyen, who has been coming to The Gardens Casino once or twice a week for the last 10-plus years, said he feels that restaurants and card rooms have been unfairly targeted for shutdowns by the county.
“Not only is it bad for the economy, but (for) all the owners with businesses,” he said, adding that having people stay home without recreational activities is bad for one’s mental health. “It’s very sad … very unfair.”
Sharp said that after nearly nine months of dealing with the pandemic, industry leaders had hoped that county officials would take a more nuanced approach now in deciding what restrictions to place on which businesses by evaluating each industry’s ability to operate safely without spreading the virus, as opposed to ordering blanket closures.
“It’s a serious thing, this virus. We get it,” Sharp said. “People have to take individual responsibility and do the right thing. And we think we have been doing the right thing.”
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Editor’s note: This version of the story clarifies losses the City of Commerce has endured this year.
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