Ross: Why it makes sense to let Las Vegas casinos reopen

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman is getting all sorts of flak for wanting to reopen the Vegas strip.

On CNN, Anderson Cooper seemed baffled when she admitted she had no plan for how to safely reopen the casinos.

“That’s up to them to figure out — I don’t own a casino,” she stated.

But I get her point.

She’s saying that in a city completely dependent on entertainment, the economic incentive is perfectly aligned with public health. And the incentive is this: Dead customers are bad for business.

“That’s the competition in this country, to be able to make sure that what you offer the public meets the needs of the public, and so for a restaurant to be open, they better figure it out,” she described. “That’s their job.”

In fact, the CEO of Wynn Resorts has already posted a 23-page health and sanitation plan, with thermal cameras continuously monitoring guests body temperatures, keeping six feet between restaurant tables and slot machines, mandatory masks for everyone, hourly hand-washing for all employees – pretty much everything short of wrapping the customers in plastic.

I say if Vegas can figure out how to make a crowded casino safe, that would be a good thing. COVID is not going away, and until there’s a vaccine, we’ll have to co-exist with it somehow. Unless David Copperfield makes it disappear, then we’re fine. That’s when I’ll visit.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Follow @http://www.twitter.com/thedaveross