A new bill, co-sponsored by Assemblywoman Suzette Valladares, R-Santa Clarita, would allow all theme parks in California, including Six Flags Magic Mountain, to open more quickly than planned in the state’s current tiered system.
On Thursday, Valladares and Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Buena Park, co-sponsored Assembly Bill 420 (AB420), which would effectively allow theme parks such as Magic Mountain and Disneyland to open once their respective counties achieve “Tier 3” status instead of “Tier 4”.
“As a veteran of the theme park industry, I intimately understand their operations, their procedures, and their ability to move people and keep them safe,” Valladares said in a statement Thursday. “The industry, and Six Flags Magic Mountain in my district, has been closed for nearly a year, while parks in other states have been open to the public and serving them safely.”
While smaller theme parks are allowed to reopen when they reach Tier 3 of the California Blueprint for a Safer Economy guidelines, larger ones allowing more than 15,000 visitors — such as Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park — may not open until their county reaches Tier 4.
“By opening our theme parks, we will trigger a ripple effect to our local economy and in turn, create more jobs,” Valladares said. “It’s time to offer clear guidelines that will balance public health and the need to safely get people back to work, and this bill is the first step.”
Los Angeles County is currently within the purple tier, as defined by the official California COVID-19 website, with purple Tier 1 describing the most hard-hit counties in terms of coronavirus spread in the community, and yellow counties with minimal spread at Tier 4:
AB 420, co-sponsored by the two assembly members representing districts in which Magic Mountain and Disneyland are located, would allow for larger theme parks to open up for the first time since their closures in March of 2020.
Operators of California parks have been critical of what they see as Governor Newsom’s overly-restrictive demands, stating that there is not a single documented case of COVID-19 at a theme park.
Theme parks, such as those in Santa Clarita and West Anaheim, are as of yet unlikely to return themselves to full operation until spring or summer under the governor’s current guidelines.
Even if the bill were to pass, current guest limits at theme parks would still only allow the parks and indoor dining establishments to open at 25% capacity, which proponents of the bill argue is better than further damaging county economies through continued theme park shutdowns.
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