This phenomena occured on 9 June when I wrote the post entitled “3,000 Jobs Gone? Why?“. I am 99% sure I read in La Nacion that the new regulation had been published in La Gaceta. It appears I was wrong and it was not published. As Bugs Bunny would say, “Whatta maroon!”.

In Costa Rica, before a law or government decree can be enforced, it must be first published in La Gaceta. The fact that it was not explains why, during my (purely research based) visits to the various casinos, I found them operating as normal. So now I must grovel to my readers and apologize for the mistake. The rest of that post is just fine.

However some of these changes will be published… perhaps as soon as this week, though it seems the decree affecting hours may not be published. If it is, those 3,000 workers will be unemployed as nearly all casinos are 24 hour per day businesses, and the reduction to an 8 hour day (6PM to 2AM will certainly hurt a lot of people.

But… as the government does not appear any too anxious to publish the decree relating to hours, who knows? Could be somebody’s brain kicked in and they realize what a truly bad idea is the cutting of jobs.

Further, there seems to be some question as to whether these decrees will affect existing businesses. One of the new “rules” is that a casino must be part of (actually IN) a hotel and may not take up more than 15% of the total space. How places like the Horseshoe, a landmark and not connected to any hotel, will fare is anybodys guess. The same is true for the Fiesta Casino near the San Jose airport. It too stands alone.

Anyway… now you know!

Most foreigners living here feel they do have that right. Perhaps they do. Certainly, it is hard to not form opinions and even harder to keep those opinions to yourself. However, I have yet to hear of a case where a North American was asked his opinion on an issue by anyone in the government.

Saying that, there are times when the government does something that to me just makes no sense whatsoever. A few weeks ago, the government announced a new policy that for the life of me I did not understand and still do not understand.

The announcement I am referring to involved a edict telling casino operators that henceforth they would be limited to allowing casino gambling only from the hours or 6 PM to 2 AM. Further, casinos must be part of, meaning inside, the hotel. Costa Rica’s casinos are for the most part inside the hotels, but a few, like the large Fiesta Casino near the San Jose airport, are not attached to any hotel, though it is across the street from the Garden Court. Other rules included no direct access from the street, and rules about alcohol being served.

I thought immediately of the huge sums of money that these companies had invested in building the casinos. Really, invested in Costa Rica. I thought of the tourists that would be affected. I thought of the thousands of Ticos employed by the casinos. Basically I just asked myself why would they do such a thing? Tourism is the cash cow of Costa Rica. Why do anything to screw that up? Why take the chance of losing just one tourist?

I read a statement by someone in the tourism bureau that visitors to Costa Rica do not come here for the gambling and I thought “This guy is making decisions that affect thousands of jobs and a ton of tourists, yet has not a clue as to what he is talking about!

While technically he is right and gambling may not be the prime reason for choosing Costa Rica as a vacation spot, I know that when most people make their vacation plans, they take into consideration things to do as a family, things their kids can do, and things they can do as adults, especially if there are no kids on the trip. When I do play at the Fiesta, Del Rey, Cariari (now Doubletree) and others, those are not Ticos I am sitting next to! Most are foreigners and they are tourists. Lots of people, especially from the US do look to see if gambling is available probably because so many states prohibit it and vacation is a great time for some harmless sinning!

Why is it so hard for Ticos to realize that tourism is a business, and if they want their share of those vacation dollars, they sure better offer services at least equal to all the other Caribbean vacation spots. They should be thinking of offering more services, not less.

If that is not enough, the cutback in hours and the closing entirely of some casinos would mean the loss of 3,000 jobs. 3,000 jobs would be a big deal in the US with what, close to 300 million people? The population of Costa Rica is under 5 million. 3,000 jobs. Incredible. For what?

I like to play Blackjack, or as that is not really available here, the Costa Rican version called Rummy. I play maybe every two months or so, so I am far from being a regular client. Still, it means I could now go only at night, and as that is the time I spend with my wife, I can not go when I want and now, maybe not at all. I felt really irritated.

I waited all this time to blog about this as I wanted to see if this would be read into the legal newspaper which is the final step in activation of any new law in Costa Rica. It was. I thought to myself that certainly someone would come to their senses and stop this silliness. They didn’t. It is now law. One newspaper on May 9 informed the readers that this law was now being enforced.

So this week, when I had an opportunity to meet with a client in the Del Rey Hotel (at 11:00 AM), I was surprised to see the casino operating all tables! Hmmm! How could this be? A quick stop at the Fiesta showed me that they too were open in the afternoon. Huh? What happened to the new law? Were the jobs lost? What happened to the law? Shrug.

Odd huh? Makes me wonder why I wrote this post.

Life in the tropics.

Costa Rica! No Artificial Ingredients! A types need not apply.