A dealer broke out decks of cards and various games of chance started up. What do a bunch of casino employees do when they have free time on their hands? We gathered in one of the classrooms and stared at the empty dry-erase boards. Most of all, we were fed up with explaining to every employee who showed up in the evacuation zone/parking lot why they couldn’t go inside the casino and, no, we don’t know what was going on.Īfter nearly an hour outside in the cold, the Duty Manager moved us to the training center, a flimsy outbuilding a few hundred feet from the casino that looked more like a shed then a structure. This event seemed more serious, but we had nothing to go on but rumors.Īs the lunch hour approached, the novelty of the interruption wore off. We were out of the casino for 20 minutes that time, our only inconvenience a lingering odor. The last time we were evacuated like this, the filter for one of the dryers down in the laundry caught fire. I looked to see if there were any helicopters flying over the reservation, as they typically do whenever there’s a fire or a standoff with the police, but there was only a hawk, turning circles in the sky. The Duty Manager seemed particularly manic as he buzzed about, stressing the importance of accurate head counts.Ĭrossing the lot to our evacuation area, I caught a glimpse of fire trucks and tribal security vehicles gathered at the casino entrance. I could tell by the worried faces of the back-of-house workers-phone operators and administrators and cubicle types who only go outside to smoke cigarettes. This is a drill, I thought, annoyed I didn’t grab my wallet or my phone. Employees from other departments streamed across the parking lot to the evacuation zone east of the casino. I was thinking cookies, not catastrophe.īut instead of ushering us to a conference room for a holiday message or a gathering in honor of someone retiring from the casino after blah, blah, blah, the Duty Manager led us to the exit and sent us outside.

I thought someone was receiving an award or the Chairman had something meaningful to say to us. When the Duty Manager said Come with me, I assumed we were being rounded up for a speech.

Barona casino tribal gaming comission