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Coronavirus News: Rye Playland to remain closed for summer due to COVID-19

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Rye Playland to remain closed for summer due to COVID-19

Marcus Solis reports a popular amusement park in Westchester County will remain closed for the summer season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

RYE, New York (WABC) -- Summer fun has taken another hit as a popular New York amusement park announced Monday, it will remain closed due to COVID-19.

Westchester County Executive George Latimer announced Rye Playland, which has been closed during the coronavirus pandemic, will remain shuttered for the summer season.

"As we've gone through the spread of the contagion and we started going through Phase 1, and Phase 2 and Phase 3 - which is what we're in now, there was not enough significant improvement to justify what happens when 8,000 people go to one place at one time," Latimer said.

It will be the first summer ever that the county-owned amusement park will fail to open in over 90 years.

The park's regular season opening would have been May 9 this year.

Aside from the public health concerns, the park faced other factors in preparing for the season, including restrictions on in-person hiring and training and supply-chain interruptions early on.

Playland has never been a huge money-maker for the county. The future of the park is still the subject of a legal battle with the private company under contract to take over management of the park.

The county will instead use the shutdown to make capital improvements that had been planned, rather than risk a spike in cases by opening its doors to thousands of people each day.

For Westchester residents in need of recreation, county pools are open with distancing rules and deep cleanings.

Some of the extra staff, needed to sanitize equipment, will be youngsters whose summer job would have been at Playland.

Despite the amusement park remaining closed, the park will still host two drive-in movies this year on Friday nights, July 24 and August 7.