Hi, I have been home for about a hour, and my phone is still ringing with city leaders.
My main duty was gathering info from other venues and sport leagues. Clearly I am not a decision maker, just a sounding board.
I think this is a good summary.
The National Hockey League already has canceled games at the Honda Center, and baseball games at Angel Stadium have been postponed.
www.ocregister.com
>>All of Anaheim’s major entertainment venues – Disneyland, Angel Stadium, the Honda Center and the city’s convention center – are expected to go dark in the coming hours or days in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
The city announced Thursday, March 12, it will reschedule all events at its convention center through the end of March and delay the mayor’s State of the City address, which was set for March 23 at the City National Grove.
“In a short amount of time, the city and our partners have stepped up and taken decisive action,” Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu said in a statement.
“This is a temporary pause in the best interest of public health. The things that make Anaheim so great will be welcoming everyone back very soon.”
The city and its venues joined the cascade of local governments and organizations canceling or postponing large gatherings in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s directive not to hold events with more than 250 people.
Hockey games and the Big West basketball tournament at the Honda Center already have been canceled, and Major League Baseball officials said they’ll postpone the opening of the season by two weeks; the Angels home opener at their Anaheim stadium had been planned for April 3.
Disneyland, which saw 18.7 million visitors in 2018, will close Saturday through the end of the month along with California Adventure, according to an announcement on the Disney Parks Twitter account.
In a
statement on Anaheim’s website, the city said it also is delaying all large and some smaller city events, including gatherings for seniors, who are potentially more vulnerable to the virus. Anaheim City Hall remains open, as do city libraries and community centers, but programs there are subject to change or cancellation.
Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster noted that Orange County currently has four confirmed cases and two presumed cases of COVID-19, the contagious respiratory disease caused by coronavirus, but, “We do want to stress with folks while this is an issue that is much bigger than Anaheim and we’re happy to play our part, this does not reflect any unique concern about Anaheim. This is a statewide issue.”
One issue Anaheim officials will be grappling with is the hit city revenues will take while visitors stay away. In this year’s budget, hotel taxes and sales taxes together were projected to total $263 million, making up more than two-thirds of Anaheim’s unrestricted revenues.
“Of course we will see an impact from this,” Lyster said, but it’s too early to gauge the size of expected losses.
The city does have “considerable” budget reserves, he said, and officials will discuss in coming weeks how to offset any drops in tourism-related revenue.<<