Anonymous
Photo: Chumash Casino
Source: Chumash Casino
The Chumash Casino Resort will reopen its doors at noon on Wednesday, June 10 with strict safety measures and cleaning procedures in place after being closed for nearly 13 weeks in a statewide effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The gaming floor will feature reduced seating and protective barriers affixed between slot machines and separating table games dealers and patrons to promote social distancing, while the food court, with fewer tables, and the Grains & Grounds eatery will be open for guests.
Until further notice, bingo sessions, the Poker Room, the fine-dining restaurant Willows, The Café, The Buffet and The Spa will be temporarily unavailable.
The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians’ other properties – Hotel Corque, Hadsten House, Root 246 restaurant and the Kitá Wines tasting room – will remain temporarily closed.
On March 15, the tribe announced the casino would close its doors days ahead of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s issued statewide stay-at-home order to combat the virus’s spread.
“We stood with our community when we elected to close our doors back in March, and we continue to stand with them with the extreme business modifications we’ve made with health and safety in mind,” said Kenneth Kahn, Tribal Chairman of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. “From temperature checks to enhanced cleaning schedules, to plexiglass barriers between slot machines and separating table games patrons, to requiring guests and employees to wear masks. When we resume operations, we’ll be ready to welcome guests back with safety measures to help protect them while they’re here.”
As the Chumash Casino Resort prepares to reopen its doors, it will welcome back employees in the coming weeks. On their return, all employees will receive training on COVID-19 safety and sanitation protocols with more comprehensive training for those who interact frequently with guests. In addition, employees will be required to wear appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), have their temperature checked before each shift and follow safety guidelines while on property.
Additional safety enhancements in and around the resort include WelloStationX™ non-contact temperature screening devices. Multiple WelloStationX™ are located at entry points to the resort. The clinically tested and FDA-cleared Class II medical devices will screen guests and employees entering the facility. The device will print a wellness sticker that will be required to be worn to allow entry.
In addition to modifying the gaming floor to allow for physical separation, the resort will require guests to wear face masks and abide by physical distancing guidelines. Enhanced cleaning schedules have also been implemented for all areas of the property including the gaming floor and the Chumash Casino Resort Hotel. Additional Safe + Well protocols can be found here.
“We believe we’ve waited until the right time to reopen the resort,” Kahn said. “All throughout the closure, we’ve reminded our employees and guests that their health and well-being are our top priority. By securing high-tech equipment, implementing strict safety procedures and working closely with the state to determine a sensible reopen date, we believe we’ve met the challenge of creating a safe environment under the current conditions.”
Located on Highway 246 in Santa Ynez, California, the Chumash Casino Resort is owned and operated by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. Its reservation was established and officially recognized by the federal government in 1901. Today, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians remains the only federally recognized Chumash tribe in the nation.
The tribe also owns Hotel Corque, Root 246, and Hadsten House in Solvang, two gas stations in Santa Ynez, and its own wine label – Kitá Wines. As the largest employer in the Santa Ynez Valley, the tribe employs more than 2,000 residents of Santa Barbara County.
Wonderful.. nothing more inspiring for a retiree than spending your day smoking a pack or two of cigarettes while playing slots and breathing off of an oxygen tank. GROSS way of life.
Ok, so now we can sit in a casino and gamble all day/night, now how about something for the kids? It’s getting really hard to explain to my kids why grown ups can now go to bars, wineries, casinos, dine-in restaurants, etc but they still can’t go outside play with their buddies.
So people can once again see performers who have outlived their usefulness and buy watered-down over-priced drinks? How exciting!
Wait until you get older and get a chance to see Katy Perry when she’s in her droopy 70s, and request drinks with less booze.
Oh great now we can have hundreds of drunk people concentrated in one place trying to stay 6 feet apart. The American response to this would be laughable if so many people weren’t dying.
The casino & it’s vicissitudes are an completely voluntary endeavor.
Someone needs to capture the American Moment in the first part of the 21st Century. The stunning need to spend time if front of a machine that is guaranteed to bleed your money from you will someday, one hopes, be seen as a low point in our social scheme. Of all the things that need our attention, this seems about rock bottom.
PS It is not a voluntary thing when the rest of society is asked to pay for it in subsidies and ignoring of laws that should protect the environment that we all share. To say nothing of the ‘moral imperative’ that justifies ‘getting something for nothing’ as a way to live.
RHS..
On the contrary..
GOING to the casino is a voluntary action..
No-one is forced.
As for morality, when was the last time you saw a Native person gambling at the casino?..
So the issue of “morality” lies upon those who have, or lack it.
Well, such a Libertarian evaluation of moral depravity is interesting. From this one assumes that there is no such thing as “sin” or “bad conduct” even. Since all things are just a matter of choice society is left unable to control anyone or anything whatever their proclivities. Really? The casino exists only because someone has interfered with community values on its behalf. Invariably that “someone” has been bought off by considerations that are personal, not communal.
NOSTRA – the casino is NOT a “voluntary endeavor.” Going to it may be, but the presence of that monstrosity was forced upon our community. It is a hotbed of ancillary criminal activities, in addition to robbing the elderly of their money. It is awful and soulless. It is a complete shame that it will re-open and become filled with drunk, desperate people 24 hours a day, while the rest of us can’t go play basketball or watch fireworks or live dancers during Fiesta. Gross!
I like a comment from yesterday about why can’t we have graduations but we’re inviting all of LA to come to state st. Makes zero sense to me. And now this, we can all go to the casino but my kids get to sit home on zoom wondering when the hell they can go back to school, summer camps, zoos, parks etc. They need a life too.
I am not a huge fan of the casino opening either but everyone’s comments are disgusting. Why judge and mock other people? Who cares if people want to go there ? They will do everything they can to make it safe and actually they have the best air system around. I feel like going to the store is much worse…. if you don’t like/approve of the casino opening DONT GO. Don’t sit around and complain, they do a lot of good for the community.
More DUI’s and petty crimes – that’s certainly making everyone safer.
The casino & it’s vicissitudes are full of the elderly wasting their lives, drunk drivers leaving their parking lots, geriatric rock performers and petty criminals hustling outside of them. It’s the low life of culture. It’s part of where Hunter S. Thompson was talking about when he wrote “The wave finally broke and rolled back”. The whites ruined the Native Americans and tried to pacify with casinos.
Nothing on the County allowing SCHOOLS to open in August (Fall), but HEY, ! LET’S GET THAT CASINO OPEN…!!!!
The great Stimulus Check Savings Dump.
To paraphrase a famous quote about poker players, when you go into the casino and look around at the opulence, if you don’t know who paid for it, you are the one paying for it.
My final casino comment shall be a simple one;
Casinos are NOT Native enterprises..they are Western in origin, in “The name of” Native peoples..meaning, you guys built them.
A law was magically “found” on the books to allow such business, & Natives, having been denied all treaty agreements, accepted the fantasy of a better life.
“Our community”?..
I beg to differ..nor do I “assume”.
Again, when was the last time you sat next to a Native person at the casino?
So the folks being complained about, are the one’s who need addressing..yes?
Agree with all, especially the best air! Let them open up, life has to restart and while I won’t be going there anytime soon I do feel that they are a professional group and will do whatever they can to keep their patrons safe.
So take them out! There is nothing saying that you can’t take them to the beach or for a hike or walk, etc. DO things with them.
As for reopening parks / playgrounds, ask yourself HONESTLY if your kids pick their nose and eat it, or wipe their nose with their hand and don’t wash them after… or if OTHER kids do that, and then your kids touch the same slide/swing/ladder at the playground that they did. How about at the movies, are you seriously going to have your child wear a mask for a movie? How about the person behind you whose kid has boogers and is coughing or talking loudly and spewing their germs into the air where your child may walk through and inhale? It’s not as simple with kids unfortunately.
When I was growing up it was up to my parents to keep me busy, not the city. What changed??
Who cares about what people do at the casino? If someone wants to spend their money there, it’s their choice. That’s not my idea of fun, but for others it it is.
Exactly, let em be!!
“Who cares” about this? Well, among others: the large population of people who will be impacted by the consequences of this crowd, including dui’s, traffic, corruption of local environments, family problems from gambling abuse and alcohol abuse, and so on. It is also socially disturbing to see people with political pull get their business back in operation while small folks are trying to simply open a local store. This is a sense of injustice that is not inappropriate.
The sense of injustice needs to be directed to Sacramento which is keeping everything shut down.