Las Vegas casinos reopen with new coronavirus guidelines

Sparkling light. Ring the bells. And now, sneeze guards at blackjack tables, mandatory empty bar stools and a bartender dancing in a bikini and face mask.

After a 78-day hiatus, play resumed at 12:01 p.m. Thursday in a changed Las Vegas.

That’s the story, said Donna Alexander, who came with her nephew, Eric Sanchez, from San Antonio to join the reopening crowd at the Golden Nugget Downtown.

We were so excited to see Vegas move again, said Alexander, who usually visits three times a year. The shutdown literally made me cry, she says. I like to play, but it’s the people, really.

I just want Vegas to be normal.

Beside her on the floor was Teddy Willoya, who had traveled 2,300 miles from Anchorage that day to play craps, he said. Willoya said he would stay on Monday, maybe longer. It depends on how things are going.

Patricia Gonzalez of Glendale and Tammy Bollinger of Sierra Madre, who said they were relieved to be out of the chaos of Greater Los Angeles for a few days, walked into the Bellagio on Thursday morning to celebrate Bollingers’ birthday. The moment was fortuitous, but they said they were happy and unflappable in the face of pandemic concerns.

We got advance reservations at restaurants and the pool, said Bollinger. I have a cabin so we won’t have many people around us.

The thousands of visitors who visited on Wednesday evening and Thursday were faced with greater and more somber stakes than during previous visits, navigating in public places in the midst of the pandemic and in the midst of a national upturn in protests against the police brutality and the death of George Floyd.

What made them come at such times? Stir-mad, many have said.

I’m tired of being locked up, said Cuong Tran, who flew from Dallas on an almost complete flight. He added, however, that widespread protests worried him.

The violence in Las Vegas included two shots Monday evening and early Tuesday. In one case, an gunman was shot and killed by Las Vegas subway police near the city’s federal courthouse. In the other, a police officer was shot in the head near the Circus Circus casino and was reported to be in critical condition.

Most of the travelers interviewed stated that they had developed their plan before the incidents took place. Upon arrival, these travelers found an abridged Las Vegas: many shops and restaurants are still closed, virtually all live entertainment is prohibited, and all visible workers are ordered to wear masks (although many guests, having the possibility, have chosen not to do so). In addition, the temperature on Thursday afternoon is expected to reach 105.

Yet people have come. The result, Thursday, was a singular moment in pop culture: the awakening of the main hedonistic playground of the Americas at a time when the nation’s physical and psychological health was in danger.

It’s kind of weird to work when so many people are protesting, said Bellagio bartender Alec Williams. But he was happy to be at work.

Well, see how it goes, said Ron Hornik, stationed at a Bellagio craps table while waiting for his first customer (who would be forced to wear a face covering due to the relatively intimate dimensions of the games). A spokesperson for the hotel said that, taking into account the adaptation to the new anti-pandemic measures, it would aim to reach at most 30% of its usual capacity.

Everyone was good, said Emyli Augustine, an EMT who checked the temperature of Bellagio customers while they stood in line at reception.

At the Venetian, gondola rides are again offered, but gondola drivers no longer sing (to reduce the risk of virus transmission) and prices are higher because the capacity of ships is limited.

Many downtown hotels have chosen to open at midnight, which gives them half a day ahead of the often more chic casinos on the Strip, which generally have chosen to wait until midnight or later. The iconic Bellagios fountains started to foam again at 9:30 am, followed by the resumption of the games. Within hours, Wynn Las Vegas, Encore, Caesars Palace, Venetian and many more were also open.

Less than half of the Strip’s casinos have reopened so far, but most have stayed on schedule before last week’s protests broke out. A few, citing high demand, have extended their opening dates.

Fifteen Strip casinos are expected to open by the weekend, including the Strat, Sahara, Circus Circus, Treasure island, Harrahs, the cosmopolitan, MGM Grand, the signature at MGM Grand, New York, New York and Tropicana.

Tony Romo, a Las Vegas resident who loves slot machines, said he came because I wanted to be part of it. Michael Gorbe from Las Vegas, who usually plays slots two or three times a week, came for the same reason, and brought his dog Zephyr to see and hear his vice masters.

There were mumbles in the slot machines, hoots at the craps tables. Within 10 minutes, the stools at Claudes Bar in the Golden Nugget were full, well, at least all the other stools. Social distancing.

For many in Las Vegas, especially those who were laid off during the casino closure, the whole scene of the revived casino was a welcome change.

We picked up a good number of reservations today only, said Wade Nakamura, front desk manager of the downtown Golden Nugget hotel, as he arrived at a guest house on Wednesday afternoon. The next morning, he estimated that the 2,400-room hotel was 15% full.

Many guests in the lobby were unmasked, while all workers (including lifeguards overlooking the Golden Nuggets’ pool) wore masks, as required by public health officials

We need to take your temperature, said Nakamura to a guest who was arriving. I will zap it very quickly. And then, to connect, we have a pen that I disinfected earlier.

A colleague quickly put a thermometer an inch from the guests’ forehead and agreed.

Meanwhile, in the Claim Jumper restaurant, the waitress Chrissie Douglas rushed from guest to guest, avoiding tables that had been slowed down by demands for social distancing. It was Douglas’ first day back to work.

I was laid off on March 18, she said. It was hard. The locals go crazy. We were locked up. We have no beaches to go to.

And now we hope our Californians will come back, she said.

At the sidewalk bar of D Hotel In downtown Fremont, bartenders Khin San and Kiyona Adams were preparing drinks for a handful of customers on Wednesday evening, hoping others will appear before midnight when several downtown casinos reopen.

San said she was relieved to be back at work but nervous about the timing. With all the protests, I don’t really know. We had planned to reopen before that, she said.

A few blocks from Fremont Street, a dancing bartender was spinning on an open-air bar in a bikini and mask. In the other direction, a protest was coming to an end and several young men had gone to the bar, including one whose sign said: My murder could be televised.

For restaurateur Maurice Sweiss, whose Ali Baba Las Vegas the restaurant and the nightclub are still closed, the opening of this week is a stage in a longer journey. Once his business opened in a few weeks, said Sweiss, the hell has 18 employees back to work, but they were going to run 50% because of the new health rules.

I’m just going to hope for the best, I hope that in a few months I will be at full capacity. It’s a difficult climb right now.