'Makes No Sense': Universal Studios Hollywood Blasts CA Closures

STUDIO CITY, CA — Universal Studios Hollywood will likely have to wait several months to welcome back guests, after state health officials released their theme park reopening guidelines Tuesday. Officials said theme parks would not be allowed to reopen until their county reaches the least restrictive "yellow" tier, and even then, would be limited to 25% capacity.

Los Angeles has long been stuck in the "purple tier," designated for communities with widespread coronavirus transmission.

Theme parks will also have to utilize advance reservations to keep tabs on the number of guests. Visitors will be screened for virus symptoms before being allowed to enter, and face coverings will be mandatory throughout the park.

California health secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the plan was informed by how other theme parks across the country have begun to reopen.

"They came back with lots of valuable lessons," he said. "Things that we saw that we were very reassured by were really great management of how lines were managed, keeping separate groups apart while in a line, while on a ride. Really great lessons learned there. But also some things that raised some concern -- the level of mixing even without masks that seemed very random and concerning to us. So those different areas of information were really assimilated and guided where we landed with this guidance."

Ghaly admitted he couldn't predict when large theme parks might reopen. Karen Irwin, president of Universal Studios Hollywood, lambasted the announcement and said the reopening rules "makes no sense."

"It ignores science, reason and the economic devastation this will bring to the thousands of our employees, the indirect businesses that rely on us and our industry overall," Irwin said. "The health and safety of our guests and team members has always been our top priority. We have designed detailed health and safety protocols that allowed us to open our theme parks in Orlando, Osaka and Singapore. We have collaborated with L.A. County health and government officials on a comprehensive plan to move forward safely here, and we are prepared and ready to open."

Universal Studios Hollywood came up with a snarky response to the limited capacity on twitter.

"It's official. We'll only be responding to 25% of our tweets until further notice," the theme park wrote.

City News Service and Kenan Draughorne contributed to this report.