Casino Opening In Atlantic City

Atlantic City’s casinos — all but one — reopen with no smoking, drinking, or eating inside Atlantic City casinos welcomed gamblers for the first time in almost four months on Thursday, but the seaside city famous for not enforcing Prohibition couldn’t let its guests drink on the casino floors. Atlantic City Casinos Staying Open Despite COVID-19 Spike. Posted on: November 18, 2020, 02:35h. Last updated on: November 19, 2020, 08:00h. Atlantic City casinos are open, but running with restrictions due to the pandemic, affecting the industry and tourism at Atlantic City overall. The casinos have seen a drop in the older demographic. Atlantic City casinos reopen in a changed pandemic world By WAYNE PARRY July 2, 2020 1 of 15 Craps players and dealers are seperated by partitions at the Golden Nugget Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., Thursday, July 2, 2020.

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Atlantic City casinos officially opened their doors on Thursday after a monthslong pause even as the state has paused the reopening of indoor dining.

The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City opened at 6 a.m. on July 2, one of the first casinos on the boardwalk to reopen, the casino shared with Travel + Leisure. In line with New Jersey’s requirement, the casino required masks be worn. The Hard Rock also took the temperatures of all guests, placed more than 200 hand sanitizer dispensers around the casino, and bought more than 1,000 air filters for common areas.

The Tropicana AC also reopened on Thursday, implementing their safety plan, which limits the number of people who can sit at each table game.

Bally’s, Caesars, and Harrah’s Resort, which are all part of Caesars Entertainment, planned to reopen a day later on July 3, the company told T+L.

“The well-being of our team members and guests is important to us, and we are focused on enhancing our health and safety protocols to provide an enjoyable guest experience that emphasizes social distancing and cleanliness,” Ron Baumann, the regional president for Caesars Entertainment, Atlantic City region, said in a statement.

Last month, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said casinos along the waterfront city could reopen, but with a cap of 25 percent capacity. Initially, the opening date was aligned with the return of indoor dining, but it has been since postponed.

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“There's an enormous amount of protocols being put in place, including social distancing, sanitization, hygienic barriers... But the great thing about casinos, they're already the most closely monitored entities in our state, if not our country,” Murphy told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday ahead of the reopening. “We have got to say this unequivocally, people have to have face coverings indoors. You just have to have them. You won't be let in and if you don't have it on when you're in, you're going to be asked to leave.”

Not all hotels, however, chose to open right away. While the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa originally planned to reopen on July 6, the hotel decided to postpone that when Murphy postponed indoor dining.

“We respect the Governor’s decision to postpone the reopening of indoor dining in New Jersey to protect the public. Given this decision, our property… will remain closed,” the hotel said in a statement. “Our guests expect a special experience when they come to our property and if we cannot provide that level of hospitality, we feel it best that we remain closed until such time that the Governor lets us know it is safe to offer food and beverage.”

The reopening of casinos in Atlantic City follows the resumption of gambling in Las Vegas last month. Casinos in Nevada were first allowed to reopen on June 4 with safety measures in place, but masks not required. On June 17, the Nevada Gaming Control Board updated its health policies to require guests to wear masks when playing table games if there wasn’t a barrier separating players and dealers.

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New Jersey allowed outdoor amusement parks, playgrounds, museums, and boardwalk arcades to reopen.

Restaurants in Atlantic City’s casinos are gearing up to resume indoor dining this Friday.

Casinos were able to reopen at the beginning of July, but without indoor eating or drinking. But now that indoor dining can resume, many employees are heading back to work.

Jacqueline Schiavo has worked in the casino industry for 35 years, currently bartending at the Hard Rock Casino. She says that nothing could have prepared her for what the last six months had in store.

“I worked on March 17 and I’m telling people that they have to leave and it was very eerie, just very scary not knowing when we were going to come back to our job,” she says.

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But now Schiavo and thousands of other workers will head back to work. UNITE HERE 54, the union representing about 10,000 casino workers, estimates that about 70% of its members will return to work when indoor dining resumes on Friday.

At Cuba Libre inside the Tropicana, restaurant workers are reading ready for the reopening.

“It would’ve been nice to have maybe a little more than four days’ notice,” says general manager Charlie Mulson. “We are a scratch kitchen and all of our dishes are prepared by scratch and all of our bar items are prepared by scratch. So getting a hold of the staff, getting them back in here and preparing all the food is now a race to get that done by Friday.'

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Cuba Libre’s cleaning manual is 66 pages long, including new jobs and new responsibilities to protect the public from COVID-19.

“We have a greeter at the front who whose full job is just to be taking guests’ temperatures and asking them questionnaires. We have what we call a ‘disinfectador.’ This person, their whole job is just to disinfect while dining is happening. Before and after so every table and chair will be disinfected between use and any hot-touched areas will be disinfected every 15 minutes,” says Mulson.

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Restaurants will have to have 25% capacity and social distancing among diners.