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Disneyland Pushes Back Opening
An employee cleans the grounds behind the closed gates of Disneyland on March 14, the first day the park was closed. (David McNew/AFP via Getty Images)
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Disneyland and its neighboring Anaheim theme park, California Adventure, will not reopen July 17 as the entertainment giant had planned.
Disney announced the change tonight, but did not say when its new target date for reopening will be.
Here's what we do know: What they're blaming it on. Disney officials are saying in a statement:
"The State of California has now indicated that it will not issue theme park reopening guidelines until sometime after July 4. Given the time required for us to bring thousands of cast members back to work and restart our business, we have no choice but to delay the reopening of our theme parks and resort hotels until we receive approval from government officials. Once we have a clearer understanding of when guidelines will be released, we expect to be able to communicate a reopening date."
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Disneyland employees say they don't feel safe going back to work. In fact, seven unions representing 17,000 workers wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom saying that they were worried and saying that the state should not give Disney approval to reopen the Anaheim parks. This all comes as Orange County officials revealed very high rates of COVID-19 cases in areas near the parks, information that Anaheim's city manager said county officials had tried to keep secret, according to the Voice of Orange County.
And at the same time, The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Disney's live action Mulan, which was scheduled to open in late July, also might be postponed. So Disney is shuffling a lot of things right now.
MORE ON DISNEY
- Disney Staff Unhappy About Happiest Place on Earth (LAist)
- Orange County Officials Told Anaheim City Manager to Keep Secret Coronavirus Zip Code Data (Voice of Orange County)
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