Politics Theme Park Reopening Guidelines to be released 10/20/20

[Serverfarm]

My only guess is that like gas cars, Newsom views theme parks as inherently wasteful and a silly vestige of the 20th century that doesn't belong here any more.

Can anyone think of some other reason? I can't, but I'm open to suggestions.

Good point. One would expect future pandemics, global warming events (fires), earthquakes, etc.. are becoming more frequent and states need to plan for it. Just like Disney, if CA was a business, why stay involved in high risk ventures? Disney is getting rid of deadwood, money losing aspects of its business for sure right now.

Travel and tourism was completely disenfranchised in "this round". Sure, during the good times it makes gangbuster profits, but as a business, one may rather invest in online, virtual communication, real estate, high tech industries...all were gangbusters before and during the pandemic. Newsom likely thinking that's the model going forward--industries that can survive these events (that means consistent TAXES!). Heck the top 5 businesses on Wall St are located in CA or have a huge presence in CA. One reason why CA left casinos to Vegas (boom -n- bust industry).

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

I said from the start if Disneyland does not open in august it won't open this year. Like many of you, I planned to go this year. In fact I was going to be taking my girlfriend to her first ever visit to the park. Then covid happened and I was ok with the parks being closed for some time until the world got back to some sorts of normal. Then the sort of normal happened with florida and other places opening back up and I was ready for them to open this summer but when that didn't happen I knew it would be closed for the remainder of the year. But I expected a early January re-opening and return to form. This news is flat out devastating. This is grim. This is f'ing grim folks. This looks like even in 2021 it won't be opening for a looooong time. I never wanted that. I wanted it back open at some point. I wanted it closed for sometime for safety but I never expected, well, this!!!!! I know I joke around with TP's weekly 4pm post in good fun and all, but I AM NOT one of those who wanted it closed indefinitley. Now, who knows if it will ever open again?? Who knows when any of them will ever open again?????! This is a gut punch man. No other way about it. This is grim.

 

[TP2000]

I'm guessing you've never been to Gilroy Gardens, 500 people is a crowded day.

In 2018 they had 457,000 people visit.

âBest year everâ for Gilroy Gardens | Gilroy Dispatch | Gilroy, California

Home of the Gilroy Dispatch

gilroydispatch.com

That's 1,252 people per day if you smoothed out the attendance evenly for all 365 days. In reality, they have very busy weekends in summer when 5,000 or more per day visit, and very slow weekdays in winter when only a few hundred people visit.

Limiting a small, seasonal amusement park to only 500 people at any one time is not a workable business model. It's economic suicide and Gilroy Gardens would not be able to remain open.

 

[Disney Irish]

In 2018 they had 457,000 people visit.

âBest year everâ for Gilroy Gardens | Gilroy Dispatch | Gilroy, California

Home of the Gilroy Dispatch

gilroydispatch.com

That's 1,252 people per day if you smoothed out the attendance evenly for all 365 days. In reality, they have very busy weekends in summer when 5,000 or more visit, and very slow weekdays in winter when only a few hundred people visit.

Limiting an amusement park to only 500 people at any one time is not a workable business model. It's economic suicide and Gilroy Gardens would not be able to remain open.

Again I'm guessing you've never been to Gilroy Gardens. 500 people is a crowded day. Yes they do get more than that, but 500 people IS very doable for a park that size especially since ALL of their business is from locals.

 

[TP2000]

Again I'm guessing you've never been to Gilroy Gardens. 500 people is a crowded day. Yes they do get more than that, but 500 people IS very doable for a park that size especially since ALL of their business is from locals.

I'll let the math speak for itself. Gilroy Gardens had 457,000 paying customers in 2018 and was trying to get to 500,000 customers for 2020 to help their rather dire financial situation. That's not happening now, obviously.

No amusement park larger than Adventure City can operate a business model that limits them to 500 customers at a time.

 

[Disney Irish]

I'll let the math speak for itself. Gilroy Gardens had 457,000 paying customers in 2018 and was trying to get to 500,000 customers for 2020 to help their rather dire financial situation. That's not happening now, obviously.

No amusement park larger than Adventure City can operate a business model that limits them to 500 customers at a time.

Well its a moot point anyways as they weren't reopening in 2020 anyways. They decided back in August same as Great America (in the same county) not to reopen this year no matter when the guidelines came out.

 

[TP2000]

Other executives of California theme parks are now releasing official statements this afternoon. All of the statements are dire and angry. Read this one from Ken Stocks the Legoland president...

“The guidance issued today by the state is arbitrary and unacceptable to the industry,” said Stocks. “Not allowing theme parks to open until Tier 4 will destroy the industry in California and the economic impact to industries that rely heavily on theme parks will be catastrophic. The administration’s actions to this point have cost tens of thousands of jobs across the industry, and today’s announcement will all but confirm that thousands more will be lost.” - Ken Stocks, President, Legoland California

Disneyland, Universal Studios Fire Back At California’s “Irreparably Devastating” Theme Park Reopening Guidelines

Executives at Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood, Legoland and others rail against the state's new reopening requirements.

deadline.com

 

[DCBaker]

OCR has updated their original article with this from the OCHCA director -

Orange County Health Care Agency director Clayton Chau said during the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20 that it will be difficult for Orange County to reach the yellow “minimal” tier until there’s a vaccine.

“I think for a large county like us, especially a county with institutions of higher education where folks come in from outside the county and outside the state, it’s going to be very hard to achieve the yellow tier,” Chau said during the meeting. “Personally, I think that we can look forward to a yellow tier by next summer, hopefully.”

California allows theme parks to reopen, but Disney and Universal may not return until next summer

California theme parks closed in mid-March as the COVID-19 pandemic forced business across the U.S. to shutter their operations and society to adjust to the ‘new normal.’

www.ocregister.com

 

[lazyboy97o]

Do you expect Disney to sue the state? And if they would, would it be before or after the election.

I would have to imagine after the election. I think Disney suing the State of CA would provide ammunition for the right in the last 2 weeks before election day.

Why? Newsom isn’t up for re-election and this has yet to be a widespread issue with the public.

 

[Askimosita]

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/070b8e27-8afc-4d2a-a674-87dc806c6158/REL_CAPAandParkPresReactiontoGuidance_10.-0001.pdf

I’ve yet to catch up on it all, so not sure if this was posted, but here is a compilation of the remarks by CAPA and the head hanchos. Seems that Sea World is notably missing

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

I'm afraid so.

Let's just try to remember the good times we had.

Noooooooooooooo!!! We can still do it as a "well its 4pm and Disneyland is still closed" until it opens right??? right?!!! Damn you Newsom!!! You blew it up!! You maniac!!!!

 

[TP2000]

OCR has updated their original article with this from the OCHCA director -

Orange County Health Care Agency director Clayton Chau said during the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20 that it will be difficult for Orange County to reach the yellow “minimal” tier until there’s a vaccine.

“I think for a large county like us, especially a county with institutions of higher education where folks come in from outside the county and outside the state, it’s going to be very hard to achieve the yellow tier,” Chau said during the meeting. “Personally, I think that we can look forward to a yellow tier by next summer, hopefully.”

California allows theme parks to reopen, but Disney and Universal may not return until next summer

California theme parks closed in mid-March as the COVID-19 pandemic forced business across the U.S. to shutter their operations and society to adjust to the ‘new normal.’

www.ocregister.com

It's obvious OC won't reach the Yellow Tier for a long time.

Using the same metrics per 100,000 that California holds its counties, all the countries of Europe are way in the Purple Tier. It's many times worse than the Purple Tier in Europe, you'd need to add a bunch of new colors to get there.

New Zealand is a country of around 5 Million that is in the Yellow Tier. But it has cut itself off from the world. No civilian is allowed to enter or leave that island nation. Air New Zealand has stopped operations beyond its borders, and all foreign airlines are barred from landing there. There is no known plan to lift those restrictions, because there is no vaccine for Covid.

Obviously you aren't going to be able to do that for Orange County. OC shares land borders with multiple other counties, and California shares land borders with three other states (Oregon, Nevada, Arizona) that allow citizens to travel into and out of California. The land border with Mexico is also open, and thousands of people per day are coming into California via the Mexican ports of entry in San Diego and Imperial counties.

Dozens of international flights per day from around the world are currently landing at LAX and John Wayne airports, plus Ontario Airport in Riverside, and Lindbergh Field in San Diego. Palm Springs Airport also has international flights from Mexico and Canada arriving daily currently.

With the free flow of goods and people into and out of Orange County, it will be a very long time until OC reaches the Yellow Tier.

 

[TP2000]

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/070b8e27-8afc-4d2a-a674-87dc806c6158/REL_CAPAandParkPresReactiontoGuidance_10.-0001.pdf

I’ve yet to catch up on it all, so not sure if this was posted, but here is a compilation of the remarks by CAPA and the head hanchos. Seems that Sea World is notably missing

Sea World still has the beer taps from when they were owned by Budweiser. The Sea World guys are probably all getting drunk this afternoon. Who can blame them.

 

[lazyboy97o]

OCR has updated their original article with this from the OCHCA director -

Orange County Health Care Agency director Clayton Chau said during the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20 that it will be difficult for Orange County to reach the yellow “minimal” tier until there’s a vaccine.

“I think for a large county like us, especially a county with institutions of higher education where folks come in from outside the county and outside the state, it’s going to be very hard to achieve the yellow tier,” Chau said during the meeting. “Personally, I think that we can look forward to a yellow tier by next summer, hopefully.”

California allows theme parks to reopen, but Disney and Universal may not return until next summer

California theme parks closed in mid-March as the COVID-19 pandemic forced business across the U.S. to shutter their operations and society to adjust to the ‘new normal.’

www.ocregister.com

You can’t throw universities under the bus because they have a fixed population that will move in and out mostly en masse at specific times and then say it’s perfectly fine for theme parks to attract more people in and out on a continuing basis. Theme parks are universities on hyper drive.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Shut It Downers unite!

 

[PostScott]

With these guidelines, I expect USH to reopen just in time for HHN 2023 when the vaccine finally comes out. But I do wonder... what anti-vaxxers will do when there is a vaccine oh no what a tragedy

 

[TP2000]

With these guidelines, I expect USH to reopen just in time for HHN 2023 when the vaccine finally comes out. But I do wonder... what anti-vaxxers will do when there is a vaccine oh no what a tragedy

Well, Sacramento has already stated they are going to slow-walk the availability of the vaccine in California. They do not trust the Trump administration's management of the FDA and CDC and want California bureaucrats to give any Trump approved vaccine "a California stamp of approval".

That will add additional time onto when the vaccine is available for Californians.

I'm going to Vegas to get my free Covid shot at the Caesar's Palace buffet.

Newsom says California will review FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines before releasing them to public

Gov. Newsom added to concerns about COVID-19 vaccines and said the state will review the safety of any vaccine approved by the Trump administration.

www.latimes.com

 

[Disneyland68]

Aloha,

Moving forward, what are DLP options? I am assuming the Disney leaders have requested an in house cost benefit analysis of their options.
* Stay shuttered until whenever when? Summer of 2021?
* Take legal action?
* Permanently close and move to a politically supportive site?
* Other options???

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

I vote move to Texas. But that's me.

 

[PostScott]

Aloha,

Moving forward, what are DLP options? I am assuming the Disney leaders have requested an in house cost benefit analysis of their options.
* Stay shuttered until whenever when? Summer of 2021?
* Take legal action?
* Permanently close and move to a politically supportive site?
* Other options???

Like someone else said on this thread, they're probably gonna sue the state once the election is over. They've literally had so many people come out and speak against the state and that hasnt worked. It's either that they sue and get it reopened, or wait to reopen. The Disney exes don't seem to be patient currently so I vote for legal action.

They literally had people sent to Florida to revise the guidelines and then not revise anything that had to do with Disneyland. They just made it easier for the smaller parks to reopen... but they aren't really any small parks in the SoCal area. Sure Adventure city and Gilroy Gardens but come on. This was just a huge punch in the face to the bigger parks. I think the Newsom has stirred the tank so much that now all the sharks are gonna bite back even harder. Disney has tried alot and gotten nowhere. They will continue to push.