Las Vegas Mayor Goodman offers city as test case for reopening amid coronavirus
Plan rejected, but local and state officials slam mayor’s remarks, calling her calls to reopen hotels, casinos and convention centers ‘reckless, dangerous’ and an ’embarrassment’
The mayor of Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman, offered her city as a test case for bringing people back to work during the coronavirus. Nevada officials condemned her comments with one local official calling them “reckless and dangerous” and another described them as an “embarrassment.”
“I offered to be a control group,” Goodman said Wednesday on CNN. She also said “it was turned down” but did not say by whether it was the state or federal government.
Anderson Cooper, the CNN host, said that would mean people would likely die as part of the experiment.
“You don’t know that,” she replied.
Goodman said she wants everything back open, including casinos, restaurants and small businesses, and a return of conventions.
Goodman said the city statistician explained to her that because people routinely commute to Las Vegas from other parts of the state, Las Vegas would not provide useful data.
The mayor does not have the power to reopen businesses — that’s a matter for the state government — but she has been on a publicity tear asking authorities to reopen the city and its casinos for business.
“We do deal in crowds and we have lived through all of these viruses, highly contagious diseases, and yet we have managed to continue to have wonderful conventions come up here,” Goodman said Tuesday on MSNBC.
Goodman said businesses would be responsible for ensuring clients kept the required social distancing of six feet from one another.
Goodman, an Independent, has been mayor since 2011. Her husband, Oscar, was mayor from 1999 to 2011. For years she was involved in her city’s organized Jewish community.
Goodman, 81, was elected in 2019 to serve a third and final term as mayor. She has no oversight of the casino-lined Las Vegas Strip because it is outside the city limits, though older downtown casinos near the Freemont Street district fall within its boundaries.
The mayor said Wednesday that while she wants casinos to reopen, she offered no guidance on how they could do so safely and maintain social distancing, saying “That’s up to them to figure out,” and “I am not a private owner.”
She demurred when asked if she herself would enter a reopened casino, saying she has a family and doesn’t gamble and is very busy. She also dismissed a Chinese study cited by Cooper showing the spread of COVID-19 in a restaurant, saying, “This isn’t China, this is Las Vegas, Nevada.”
US Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat who represents the Las Vegas Strip, said Goodman doesn’t represent the area “literally or figuratively” and the advice of scientists telling people to stay home should be heeded.
Justin Jones, a Democrat who sits on the Clark County Commission that oversees the Strip, called the mayor “an embarrassment” and said her comments were insulting to the citizens and businesses of the region. His commission colleague Michael Naft called the mayor’s remarks “reckless and dangerous” and said lifting restrictions too soon would be a slap in the face of those who sacrificed.
The casino workers Culinary Union, which represents about 60,000 bartenders, cooks, housekeepers and other workers, said Goodman’s remarks were “outrageous considering essential frontline workers have been dealing with the consequences of this crisis firsthand.”
The union said 11 of its members so far have died of COVID-19.
Statewide, 172 people have died of the disease and more than 4,000 have tested positive. Most people with the virus experience symptoms such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. Older adults and people with existing health problems can face severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
The Times of Israel Community.