Two Auckland men crossed checkpoints to visit SkyCity Hamilton casino
Sunday, 16 August 2020
Two Auckland punters visited SkyCity’s Hamilton casino on Thursday night after the city went into alert level 3.
A SkyCity spokeswoman said staff acted proactively, asking the men to leave the casino.
When the level 3 restrictions were announced for Auckland, 10 police checkpoints were put in place around the city. Of those, four were south of Auckland to ensure people did not travel in or out of the city unless it was essential.
Police confirmed they were aware of the two men from Auckland visiting the casino and it was “unfortunate” and “incredibly disappointing” that there were people lying about their reasons for travel.
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“Police are taking a firm but friendly approach, with a focus on engagement, encouragement and education. To a certain extent, police and New Zealand Defence Force staff have to accept at face value the reasons for travel provided by motorists,” the spokeswoman said.
“The vast majority of people are complying with the alert level restrictions and doing their part to keep our communities safe.”
As at 5pm on August 15, 50,468 vehicles had been stopped at checkpoints and of those 676 were turned around for undertaking non-essential travel, a police spokeswoman said.
SkyCity had closed its Auckland casino, but was still operating its hotel and operating its casinos in Queenstown and Hamilton under level 2 restrictions.
The SkyCity spokeswoman said the company had implemented an “extensive” Covid-19 health and safety plan with appropriate social distancing and hygiene measures at level 2.
“Members only may enter SkyCity Hamilton Casino, to ensure we have a central register of who is on site and when, so we can support the Ministry of Health with contact tracing, if required.”
SkyCity was also using facial recognition technology to record customer visitation to assist contact tracing, the spokeswoman said.
She said operating under level 2 restrictions also meant dividing the gaming floor in to zones and limiting the number of patrons on site as well as configuring gaming machines to ensure physical distancing, with a maximum of three players on any one table game.