WAYLAND, Mich. — Jose Flores is the vice president and general manager of Gun Lake Casino and has spent 25 years in the casino industry.
"Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined we would go through this," Flores said about the pandemic.
Gun Lake Casino shut down on March 16 but they never expected the closure to last this long.
"When we shut the facility down, we thought it was maybe for two or three weeks, then it turned into two months," added Flores.
Now, he and his staff are getting set to reopen on Monday, June 8 at 8 A.M. with several precautions in palce.
"We have a ton of new cleaning standards, new protocols, contact training, training for team members and new standards for them and our guests," he said. "We also have temperature checks when they walk in the building.
The casino is also taking several other steps, including requiring face masks for both employees and guests as well as removing 50-percent of the restaurant seating and many of the smoking areas.
"When we reopen, we're going to be primarily a non-smoking facility," said Flores, "we're going to reopen 65-percent of our facility as a non-smoking environment. We have retained 35-percent of our casino floor for smoking, we want to be able to give the guests options.
The casino staff is anticipating a very busy day on Monday when they reopen their doors, but capacity is set a 25-percent occupancy.
"We do anticipate a large volume of guests," said Flores, "we hope they're patient with us, because we're learning as we go."
The casino will still be open seven days a week but will close at 3 A.M. every morning for cleaning, before reopening at 8 A.M. every day. Flores also says they have installed people counters to make sure they're under the 25-percent occupancy.
