COVID-19’s Impacts on BGW

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Zachary said:
Anyone getting spun up about this stuff right now is doing so prematurely. Wait till we actually see the Phase 3 guidelines before you go encouraging frivolous lawsuits.
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Im not sure what you mean? He flat out said what phase 3 would be. Im also not sure the employees sitting at home think the park doing everything it can to open considers it frivolous. If its true they cant open in phase 3 that could be disasterous for the park because who knows how long 3 could last.
 
Amusement parks are falling under the 1000 person restriction in phase 3. See page 29 of the guide - https://www.governor.virginia.gov/m...f/Virginia-Forward-Phase-Three-Guidelines.pdf

A few more mandatory items for amusement parks in VA:
  • Ten feet of physical distance must be maintained between all performers, participants, and patrons who are not members of the same household.
  • All shared items must be cleaned and disinfected between uses.
  • Remove or deactivate all shared objects and interactive exhibits/events to discourage congregating and reduce contact with high-touch surfaces.
I don't see how BGW or KD can open with a 1000 person capacity and 10ft between riders of different households.
 
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rswashdc said:
Amusement parks are falling under the 1000 person restriction in phase 3. See page 29 of the guide - https://www.governor.virginia.gov/m...f/Virginia-Forward-Phase-Three-Guidelines.pdf
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I think you are wrong.

"Occupancy cannot not exceed 50% of the lowest occupancy load on the certificate of occupancy, if applicable, or 1000 patrons."

It says nothing about the lowest of the two. The 50% applies if an occupancy load certificate exists ("is applicable") by my reading. If true, parks should be able to open with 50% of max capacity in Phase 3.
 
Zachary said:
I think you are wrong.

"Occupancy cannot not exceed 50% of the lowest occupancy load on the certificate of occupancy, if applicable, or 1000 patrons."

It says nothing about the lowest of the two. The 50% applies if an occupancy load certificate exists ("is applicable") by my reading. If true, parks should be able to open with 50% of max capacity in Phase 3.
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There's a good chance it's 1000 and it's just a language issue.

Here's the policy on horse shows: The total number of attendees (including both participants and spectators) of livestock and horse shows cannot exceed the lesser of 50% of the occupancy load of the venue, if applicable, or 250 persons.

In other orders, they've used lesser of the two, so I don't see why it would be different here.
 
rswashdc said:
There's a good chance it's 1000 and it's just a language issue.

Here's the policy on horse shows: The total number of attendees (including both participants and spectators) of livestock and horse shows cannot exceed the lesser of 50% of the occupancy load of the venue, if applicable, or 250 persons.

In other orders, they've used lesser of the two, so I don't see why it would be different here.
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Well, a court would take the horse show language and use that to interpret the theme park language to be what Zachary interpreted, as they would assume the absence of "lesser" was intentional.

Unless they make a correction.
 
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PrincessArlenasDad said:
Well, a court would take the horse show language and use that to interpret the theme park language to be what Zachary interpreted, as they would assume the absence of "lesser" was intentional.

Unless they make a correction.
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This precisely. In my opinion, the presence of that phrase for other types of venues but not for parks actually increases the likelihood that lesser of the two was not the intended meaning.

rswashdc said:
I'm sure the governor's office will clarify it before this goes to court. It's a two minute fix to the document.
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Unless it was specifically worded that way to allow amusement parks to reopen.
 
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Zachary said:
I think you are wrong.

"Occupancy cannot not exceed 50% of the lowest occupancy load on the certificate of occupancy, if applicable, or 1000 patrons."

It says nothing about the lowest of the two. The 50% applies if an occupancy load certificate exists ("is applicable") by my reading. If true, parks should be able to open with 50% of max capacity in Phase 3.
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The phrasing is very confusing and open to interoperation. This is a direct quote from his address today. "Entertainment venues like Museums, zoos, concert venues may open with 50% capacity with a CAP of 1,000 people." The use of cap to me means that is the limit regardless of the capacity.
 
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Zachary said:
This precisely. The presence of that phrase for other types of venues but not for parks actually increases the validity of the case for parks in my opinion.



Unless it was specifically worded that way to allow amusement parks to reopen.
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If you take out the words 'if applicable", the 1000 cap seems pretty likely applies.

Even if the 1000 person capacity doesn't apply, the 10ft physical distancing on rides is a killer. That's something like every 4th or 5th row on a ride.
 
horsesboy said:
The phrasing is very confusing and open to interoperation. This is a direct quote from his address today. "Entertainment venues like Museums, zoos, concert venues may open with 50% capacity with a CAP of 1,000 people." The use of cap to me means that is the limit regardless of the capacity.
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I'm not sure amusement parks fit in with those examples. They have no where near the capacity of the theme parks.
 
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Zachary said:
I think you are wrong.

"Occupancy cannot not exceed 50% of the lowest occupancy load on the certificate of occupancy, if applicable, or 1000 patrons."

It says nothing about the lowest of the two. The 50% applies if an occupancy load certificate exists ("is applicable") by my reading. If true, parks should be able to open with 50% of max capacity in Phase 3.
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Question: Does the park have an official, posted, occupancy limit for the entire park where the 50% can be used to set the attendance figure for opening? Numbers have been put out before what their occupancy limit is and times it's been exceeded by the park once in a while during HOS or CT.
 
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PrincessArlenasDad said:
I'm not sure amusement parks fit in with those examples. They have no where near the capacity of the theme parks.
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Sports venues and concert venues are in that same category. Jiffy Lube Live has capacity of over 25k. Richmond Raceway has a huge capacity, probably in excess of BGW and KD.
 
rswashdc said:
Sports venues and concert venues are in that same category. Jiffy Lube Live has capacity of over 25k. Richmond Raceway has a huge capacity, probably in excess of BGW and KD.
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To your point Richmond Raceway has a capacity of 51,000 there is no way that BGW has more then like 30 grand if that. If the raceway is strictly limited to 1,000 then I have a hard time seeing where BGW would qualify for more.
 
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Curious if this is because even though the parks cover large areas there's a lot of choke-points built into their designs - granted there are still fairly wide paths in some areas - that make it much harder to ensure they can prevent spreading the virus?

Of course, I'm still not a legal expert so no real idea on how to interpret the phase 3 order for parks.
 
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Zachary said:
Just a reminder regarding potential wiggle room in these guidelines: Botanical Gardens are in the same category as Amusement Parks, but the Norfolk Botanical Gardens have been open and busy this entire time.
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Most the non-amusement park outdoor entertainment venues were allowed to open in phase 2, but the capacity limit was really low (50 or 250 I think).
 
rswashdc said:
Most the non-amusement park outdoor entertainment venues were allowed to open in phase 2, but the capacity limit was really low (50 or 250 I think).
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That's how I read the guidelines too, but literally they haven't closed throughout any of this and they have remained busy—far exceeding the phased reopening caps.
 
Zachary said:
That's how I read the guidelines too, but literally they haven't closed throughout any of this and they have remained busy—far exceeding the phased reopening caps.
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He has been treating the Botanical Gardens as the same category as state and local parks. Not saying that is the correct way that they should have handled them but that how they handled them. Not to swing to much into the political debate but I think it has some bearing but he was blast quite heavily by the judge in shooting range case for tweaking designation of places more or less at will to fit the order so if the parks were to raise a legal challenge similar to Cedar Point then the Botanical Gardens situation might give them so legal maneuvering room.
 
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