Game On: Durham casinos to reopen Friday
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Durham’s two casinos will swing open their doors to gambling enthusiasts on Friday as the province continues to ease its pandemic restrictions.
The Great Blue Heron Casino on Scugog Island and Casino Ajax will reopen for the first time since November 2020 on July 16 as Ontario progresses to Step 3 of its post-pandemic plan.
Under the province’s guidelines for the third step, casinos will open with a 50-per capacity limit to reflect physical-distancing requirements.
Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, which operates the Scugog Island and Ajax casinos, also noted in a release that it is also planning to open the casino at Pickering Casino Resort “in the near future, with the remainder of the resort opening at a later date in 2022.”
In May 2020, after casinos were shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Unifor 1090 President Corey Dalton, who represents employees at the Durham gaming houses, said that it generally takes little time to restart the shuttered casinos.
“Ontario casinos are required to follow very strict procedures in accordance with AGCO regulations,” he said. “However, in instances where casinos have been forced to close in the past, startup only requires a short period of time, typically less (than) 48 hours.”
Last year, prior to the casino closures, Unifor represented 620 members at the Great Blue Heron Casino and another 230 at Casino Ajax. It’s anticipated there will be more than 1,500 unionized employees at the Pickering casino.
As of Tuesday morning, neither the Great Blue Heron nor the Ajax casino had updated their websites to detail their hours of operation, what other amenities such as restaurants may be available or if patrons will be required to register online for time slots to play.
Under the third stage of Ontario’s tiered reopening plan, there will be increased indoor activities including restaurant dining and gym use while larger crowds will be permitted for outdoor activities.
Indoor social gatherings and events will be able to include up to 25 people while outdoor gatherings and events can accommodate up to 100 people, with some exceptions.
Indoor dining will return with no set limit on people per table or in the restaurant, as long as physical distancing can be maintained and sports and fitness facilities like gyms can reopen to 50-per cent capacity indoors.
Retail businesses will also be able to open to whatever capacity limit that still allows people to maintain two metres of distance between people and personal care services like salons can open to whatever capacity limit allows proper distancing between clients.
Indoor concert venues, cinemas and theatres can open up to 50-per cent capacity or a maximum of 1,000 people and museums, galleries, historic sites, aquariums, zoos, landmarks, botanical gardens, science centres, casino and bingo halls, amusement parks, fairs and rural exhibitions can open to 50-per cent capacity indoors and 75-per cent capacity outdoors.
