By Robert McCann, Palm Springs Politics FB Group
"Stop the Meal" update!Despite receiving dozens of e-mails in protest, the Agua Caliente Casino took no action to stop the East Valley Republican Women Federated (hereafter, the EVRWF) luncheon on Monday morning.
Accordingly, well-known activist Bill Holzhauer and I went to the casino to check out the event in person. We set out to answer several questions: How many people attended? How crowded was the space they put themselves in? What was the threat to the community posed by the event?
To get answers, Bill planted himself on a bench at the entrance to the L-shaped hallway that leads from the vast gambling hall to the Casino ballroom; I stood at the corner of the "L", which gave me visual access to the area in front of the ballroom where the Luncheon registration table was set up. From those two vantage points, we just quietly observed what was going on.
I arrived about 10:35 AM, and Bill was already there. He estimated that as many as 40 luncheon attendees, approx. 20 "early bird" attendee arrivals and 20 East Valley Republican Women Federated volunteers, were already through the registration area by the time I arrived on the scene. From 10:35 to the scheduled start of the event (11:30 PM), I counted an additional 195 attendees go through the registration process, for an estimated total of 235 people ending up inside the ballroom.
I took the liberty of checking out Auga Caliente's webpage for the capacity of the ballroom for banquet seating affairs during the Covid period, and discovered that the number is 240. So the room, with almost no physical distance between the seats at the round banquet tables, was filled almost to overflowing. Did our "Stop the Meal" effort have any impact? Not on the Casino, obviously, and not on the number of attendees. However, the "Stop the Meal" Desert Sun article was the "talk of the town", as it were, with both Bill and I overhearing several conversations about it. Moreover, and more concretely, the registration process was complicated (and slowed) by an EVRWF member approaching each person in the registration line and asking them if they had a cell phone. If the answer was "Yes", she asked for the phone, placed it in a paper envelope, sealed the envelope, handed it back to the owner, and asked them not to unseal and use the phone until after the luncheon.
Many times, I overheard this EVRWF member explain why she was taking this action: She said it was because photos were taken at the December luncheon of attendees not wearing masks, these photos got out on social media, and the Casino got into trouble as a result. Thus, all cell phones were being sealed up "at the request of the casino" to prevent any photography and any photos from reaching social media this time around.
There was occasional mention of the Desert Sun article in connection with this explanation. Every single attendee wore a mask while going through registration. But did they keep their masks on after crowding into the ballroom? The EVRWF made sure to close the doors soon after everyone was seated, making it difficult for Bill or myself to snap any inside photos. But Bill prevailed, and did capture the image that accompanies this post, which clearly shows two attendees seated at their table with their masks off. Of course, that's hardly a surprise. You can't consume food and drink (that you've paid $40 for) while wearing a mask. It is hardly a stretch to surmise that at some point during the event, every one of the approximately 240 attendees went maskless.
No wonder the EVRWF took every precaution to prevent any photos from being taken inside! So, having answered the questions we set out to investigate, what is the take-away message? Simple. The December luncheon had all the ingredients of a "superspreader" event, and Monday's event was absolutely no different. The only change from December is that, this time around, the ladies of the EVRWF took great pains to cover their asses, and squelch bad publicity, by doing their level best to prevent any visual record of the luncheon from reaching social media.
They almost succeeded.
IMAGE CITED:
https://preview.redd.it/c54654kbrbf61.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8737662aea6c0c3c796dc3fbf133ec21a0768c0e
Desert Sun article cited:
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/health/2021/01/29/group-calls-cancellation-republican-women-luncheon-california-tribal-casino/4269013001/
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