Actually, it was paid back to the government, with interest. The feds made money on it.

I'm the tech at Abari Game Bar in Charlotte. We closed today after it was suggested that there be no social interactions above 5 people. Reboot Arcade Bar in the area also announced closing earlier today.

We sell the Skittles that the Unicorns are shitting out. Barely an inconvenience.

Sux man, just Sux!

To cut through the politics and (incomplete) data analysis, we voluntarily closed Mystic Pinball this weekend as a precaution and it’s incredibly sad. The Governor (MA) issued new rules shortly after anyway that would have shut us down.

Having to lock up my arcade not knowing when it’ll open again is an awful feeling. So, leave your opinions at the door; this thread is for operators and what we are doing. With the Government forcing us closed, it doesn’t really matter if you think it is overblown or not. (But, since I’m livid from reading pages of these posts denying the severity, it isn’t absurd to close non-essential services like arcades.)

The hope is because this crisis is going to affect everyone, that they will have to bail us all out.

Please PM me to get a few dozen memberships #LTG. I support those that support others.

NYC... No JackBar , no Sunshine , not a good thing

Lloyd, we're all in this together. Let us help you.

You don't have to decide anything this moment. Just know that we care about you. You are in my thoughts right now. And if I can help you (and if you'll let me) I will. I know others feel the same way.

That was my thought, good opportunity to catch up on all those niggling repairs and some full-on shop jobs. Get ready for a grand re-opening party with everything playing great. Easy for me to say, not in the arcade business, just trying to stay optimistic on behalf of you guys.

The biggest 2 arcades in my area have closed (one owned 4 locations), and then Dallas county made all restaurants, bars, theatres, and gyms close.
I'm not really sure if there are any public places to play pinball right now in my area.

I thought the same thing, they have proven to be extremely unreliable and biased sources. I'm not saying the information in the articles posted is incorrect because I didn't bother to read them as soon as I saw the sources.

I think this whole situation is a very difficult delicate balancing act between "treating" the outbreak through social distancing, closing schools, businesses, etc. and causing more harm than you are preventing. If my business is going to fail if I'm forced to close for six weeks I really don't have a lot of faith the government is somehow going to bail me out afterwards and certainly not in a time frame that would help me feed & house my family and my employees. We're talking about the world's largest and possibly most-inept bureaucracy here. I also think mandated closings should be localized / rationalized, if all the cases of the virus are isolated to one area why close businesses that are 100s or miles away that may never have contact with the infected areas?

That's incredibly short sighted. Think about it: they have to shut down a wide radius because people roam far too easily and nonchalantly, even beyond "affected" areas.

You're over a hundred miles away from Louisville... but LAX was probably a draw to many others further than you!

My brother lives nearly 1,000 miles away but drove up last week - before the mass closings began, let me be clear - so we could work on his truck. We had travel to various stores rounding up needed supplies... we finished and he drove back yesterday. So I hope he didn't catch something while here to bring it back there. And hope he didn't bring here it with him in the first place!

Now that's just two people going about their preplanned lives keeping mostly to themselves. But Multiply ten (or hundred) thousandfold and you can be sure others come from and go to infected areas both known and unknown across even greater distances.

Last weekend we were supposed to attend a large regional archery tournament for my daughter. We would have traveled 50 miles to get there and others would have come from double and possibly even triple that distance. It was ultimately canceled of course, but I'm sure you can figure out how the ripple effects for spread would overlap. From just one tournament. For one interest. So again, multiply that across all the other sports / hobbies / professions / interests having their own events... then all those people go back home to the small hardware store, bar, church, or whatever...

Which is why I have no problem with them canceling large events where people travel long distances to attend and gather close together for days at a time. I just think a once-size-fits-all approach isn't very scientific. As I stated my post as saying, it's a very difficult balancing act and I can understand both sides of the argument.

The wealthy.

Not rich people who have a few million. The wealthy who have a few hundred million. More money than any reasonable person could ever spend. It's absurd how low the highest tax bracket tops off at and what the rate is. Now cue some people who are not rich, let alone wealthy, and who will never be rich defending the wealthy as deserving of their wealth because reasons...

"One size has to fit" because for sake of argument, let's say that tournament did go on as planned and my brother decided to attend to support his niece since he happened to be here. Big tournament = higher than likely chance something is in the air. D'oh, he got it, but of course has no idea.

He then drives 1,000 miles back home. And goes to the small local neighborhood pub... (hey, why should that have been closed when the closest known hotspot is XYZ miles away?)

No one wants people to be harmed or killed by a virus.
No one wants a business or it's employees to suffer.
No one wants to accidentally infect someone or become infected them self.
There is no way to tell who will be affected and to what degree so leaning on the side of being slightly overly precautions is best in my opinion.

How much blood are you willing to live with on your hands if you choose to ignore or to follow the decisions that your local leaders create and/or enforce?
If businesses close or employees immediately loose income, it could certainly cause harm or eventually cause loss of life in other ways. I suppose the hope there is that a majority of Americans will do whatever they need to do, just like always. (See LTG's post #226, down from here!)

This is all just the best that we can do with what we have to work with right now. Americans generally have a mentality of doing whatever they want... related closely to freedoms that other countries lack.

At the same time, leaders do the best they can to report and concern the public, because they think it is currently best for the typically educated American.

Just the reality of these times. You can always do whatever the hell you want. No one is going to stop you. Any action that anyone ever made in the entire history of the world can never be taken back or "redone". I think it's important to remember that no matter what, the only person you have control over is yourself.

I just said I had no problem cancelling large public events, if that's the case he never attends a show that doesn't exist. Are you advocating shutting down all interstate travel or travel outside of a certain radius for the entire population because that sounds like the only way to prevent the scenario you've proposed. The disease is also not airborne so precautions can stop it from spreading and there's no guarantee anyone in the pub with him would contract it. I get it that this thing is very scary and fear is deeply rooted in us, it also affects people in both ways (fear of the virus and fear of the lock-downs, isolation, etc.) we all need to be cognizant of that. I'm also not trying to start arguments on this topic (or in general), just stating my opinion, if you disagree I'm fine with that.

While I agree they should contribute more, there is no way it would even come near the amount to fund these new giveaways.

Seems like a good place to ask a question. Trying to decide if playing pinball in public is considered safe or is it a dangerous activity to be avoided for now?

Let’s say you had an opportunity to visit an arcade with lots of pins and very few people and play for a day. You are healthy and have had no known exposure to corona. Is it dangerous to touch/play the games if you wash up before and after. Presuming nobody is going to be in your space, other than an occasional person playing beside you. You know not to be touching your face and will follow that. If you show up and the place is full of people or someone there appears sick, you are willing to turn around and drive home. What would you do?

Not sure if they have an accurate measure on exactly how long the virus exists not on a body but on a thing. Wash your hands a lot and don't touch your head.

LTG : )

I think your question sums up everything about this turn of events. The fact that....what 2-3 months in anyone has to ask this question explains how little we actually know about the situation we are in.

Me, I'm avoiding most crowded places. However, say like grocery stores, well you have to use them. I go late at night when they should be less busy. I'm not afraid to be near anyone or touch anything, I just make sure to wash my hands often. Being in proximity of another person doesn't guarantee exposure, but most people will not know if they have it or not. That adds to the fear. If they aren't coughing/sneezing on/near you...it's really not an issue (as we understand it). Even if they are, it still doesn't mean it is coronavirus. That being said, I won't be going out of my way to visit an arcade, bar, restaurant, etc in the near future.

I do think the higher number of people around you, the more likely it is that someone has it. Just like herpes :p

I work from home so my exposure is limited. However my wife works in retail and they are still working. I anticipate that if infection rate goes up around here, the chances of her or one of her employees contracting it will be pretty high.

Thank you both for the kind words and support.

I hope I won't need help. Not my first rodeo. 1981 video fad bubble burst, went from huge income to no income. Mid 2000's when the economy tanked along with my industry, which used to thrive on bad times because cheap entertainment. I sold games to stay open.

I'll get through this. Somehow, someway. The only thing I've ever known is to keep getting back up, no matter how hard I'm knocked down.

LTG : )

The virus can last 24 hours on cardboard and up to 3 days on plastic and steel. I didn't prep for all this. Honestly, think it's being blown out of proportion, but I could be wrong. Never expected the Gov to start closing businesses and restricting travel. We have a travel advisory in Indianapolis right now. We're only allowed to travel to and from work and in emergency situations.

Edit : The government is looking into sending small businesses loans within the next couple weeks. They've asked congress for $850 billion stimulus package. $250 billion for small business loans.

.

Clip from BBC posted March 17 2020.

The findings suggest the virus might last this long on door handles, plastic-coated or laminated worktops and other hard surfaces. The researchers did find, however, that copper surfaces tended to kill the virus in about four hours.

So I need to go buy all the copper bracelets and sell them at 4x the cost?

Copper has long been known for anti-microbial properties. I constantly walk into assisted living or nursing homes with long, old wooden railways up and down the hallways and brass door knobs. I think every assisted living and nursing home facility should have copper doorknobs, rails, etc. Even if the cost is a little higher, its properties are going to help against a multitude of viruses and bacteria.

We're staying open as we are located inside a farmers market known for selling food/groceries. Machines are disinfected 1-2 per day and we have sanitizer readily available. Business was down 50% last week and I expect it to be worse this weekend.

I'm in the same boat as you and I respect this, its cool selling gift cards or merch if you have to. Not sure I can get behind the patreon or go fund me just because though. I'd try everything else possible before asking for straight cash donations... even then. Maybe that's just me, because it feels like I see GoFundMe's for everything nowadays.

This is exactly what I said and it was downvoted?? Yet you copied my data analysis and everyone agrees with you... what kind of doublethink is this???

As for whether we’re open or closed, my arcade is open and I was informed by the mall there is no plans to close. They took out all the tables so it’s not longer considered an “eat-in” establishment and thus because the restaurants are open they have gotten around the loophole and I am next to the eateries.
Business is way, way down. But every time I stop by (it’s an unattended arcade) there are a handful of folks milling around. The arcades in Lake George have no plans to shut down unless legally mandated and as of Sunday, business was good

pookycade Thank you for your insight. I have a question. This may sound ridiculous. I have heard about shortages of respirators. Is there any chance bipaps used for sleep apnea could help victims that might have a bad case of COVID-19, but not so bad that they require a full blown respirator. I don't think it'd take much to modify a bipap to help someone. I know these are prescribed and fine tuned for the patient, but I think all of them could be tweaked for other patients.

I no longer need to use a bipap since I had surgery to clear out all of the crap in my throat that was blocking up my airways (the surgeon was impressed with my hideous looking tonsils when he yanked them ). I think I have two of them laying around. It'd be nice if they could be put to use.

dupe

And closed at 5pm sharp. I hope these measures help and they don't have to extend the March 27th 5pm reopening. Stay safe everyone !
LTG : )

Lloyd, is there a way to forward phones to home? So you don't have to stay at workplace.

CPAP and nebulizers could help the less severe cases, but they probably should only be used in negative pressure rooms. Gonna be pumping the virus out into the room. Not sure how many more negative pressure rooms we have compared to respirators, but I suspect this would also be a bottleneck.

Really hope you pull through Lloyd. Since moving up here it has been and is one of my goals to stop on in one day.

Another goal was to drop by the Pinball Warehouse in Fridley...

I'll be one of the first through the door when you reopen, thanks LLoyd for all you've done for the pinball community.

Possibly. But also moving the computer and all my resources. And I'm comfy here. Besides tech stuff, I'll find stuff to do. Freshen the place up a bit for when I can reopen.

A little short on parts, was getting a big order ready. But thought I better wait, once things slowed and then the closings were announced. Some things are necessary, some things can or will have to wait.

LTG : )

You can use google voice for free to forward calls - I think it does cost if you tell them it's for business, but they may wave it under the circumstances.

At least three of my four phones I believe I can forward.

I need a little distance. Home is for home. Work is for work

Worst couple years of my life was when my Mother owned a 3.2 bar in NE Minneapolis. There were apartments upstairs. So we moved into one. Problems from home go to work. Problems from work go home. It was a vicious circle.

Thank you for the advice. But I need a little distance between the two.

LTG : )

Wizards World (AKA Fort Wayne Pinball) closing down tonight for awhile.

I work at an arcade that’s closing for now and as well as all of my locations. 2020 blows so far, but the closures are for the best and hope it helps slow the spread.

Just a thought, but possibly we as a community could pool money together and start some type of relief fund for operators?

As for me, my arcade is still non-operational, so its business as usual. Hopefuly this thing will have subsided in time for my grand opening later this year.