Philadelphia Casinos Forced To Impose Face Masks, Double Masks Coming for City Staff

Posted on: August 12, 2021, 07:16h. 

Last updated on: August 12, 2021, 02:04h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

Philadelphia casinos are once again requiring employees and guests to wear face masks while indoors. But Rivers Casino and Live! Casino and Hotel didn’t make the decision on its own.

Philadelphia casinos face masks Pennsylvania
A woman walks down a Philadelphia street wearing a face mask with City Hall and its William Penn statue in the background. City casinos, as of today, are requiring face masks for workers and gamblers. (Image: AP)

The City of Philadelphia is experiencing rising COVID-19 case counts from the delta variant. In response, city officials said yesterday that the indoor face mandate is being reimplemented at most places.

Effective today, face masks are required indoors at businesses and institutions where proof of vaccination for employees and guests is not mandatory. Businesses that mandate workers and patrons show they’ve been vaccinated are exempt from the latest order.

Philadelphia is urging all city employees to become vaccinated as soon as possible. If they don’t — effective September 1 — they will be required to wear not one but two face masks while on the job. Nonvaccinated employees will be ordered to wear a cloth mask covering over a disposable or surgical mask.

We’ve said it before: wear your mask to help flatten the curve. It worked before, and it’ll work again,” city statement read.

New weekly COVID-19 cases in Philadelphia have increased substantially since early summer. The city confirmed around 150 new cases each week in June and July. But numbers have skyrocketed to more than 1,000 each week in late July and early August.

Nearby Casinos Immune

Five casinos are located in the Philly metro. The farthest from downtown is the Valley Forge Casino Resort some 20 miles west. Along with Rivers and Live!, the other casinos in the area are Harrah’s Philadelphia and Parx.

Only Live! and Rivers are located within the city limits, and therefore subject to city orders. And during the pandemic, that put Rivers at a competitive disadvantage with its Philly peers.

Last year, Rivers — then the only casino in Philly’s city limits, as Live! Philadelphia opened in January of 2021 — was ordered to close, while its neighboring competitors were not.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) ordered the state’s commercial casinos to suspend operations in mid-March of 2020. They began reopening on a regional approach in June. But Rivers remained closed on city orders until July 17.

Last November, Philadelphia ordered Rivers to close from November 20 through January 15 because of a COVID-19 spike. The state’s other commercial casinos were only closed on Wolf’s commands from December 12 through January 4.

Public Retaliation

Some city residents are none too glad to hear face masks are once again required in most indoor places throughout downtown.

A few attitudes on the City of Philadelphia’s Twitter post announcing the mask reimplementation include, “Lol funny. Not wearing a mask,” “Completely ridiculous,” and “118 hospitalized out of 1.8 million residents.”

https://twitter.com/TheAdlerian/status/1425656971919826949

Others, however, cheered the directive.

“This is a fair and reasonable request to make of common-sense Philadelphians. Nobody likes this but it’s what we must do to beat the COVID crisis which is still causing a lot of harm,” opined resident Edith Horwitz.