At each establishment, workers used handheld devices, thermal cameras or body scanners to check body temperatures of people entering the casinos. Over the past two months, inewsource visited seven of the county’s nine tribal casinos. A former executive is suing over the casino’s reopening. Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Valley Center is shown on Sept. The casino also is involved in a lawsuit brought by its former general manager, who says he was so concerned about health risks from reopening that he had no choice but to quit. The case remains open and no further public details are available. In late August, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration launched an investigation into Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Valley Center following a complaint.

The casinos began reopening in May with new cleaning, social distancing and face covering policies, but some of their employees have raised concerns. Already, San Diego fails to stay under the threshold for outbreaks set by public health officials.

That means local outbreaks potentially are being left out of a metric the county considers in reopening decisions. Because they are on sovereign land, they aren’t subject to local health regulations that ordered other businesses remain closed. The nine tribal casinos in San Diego County began reopening in May with limited operations, about two months after shutting down due to COVID-19.

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