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New York Times

As the Virus Surges in South Florida, a Trump Resort Joins the Rush to Reopen

Republished By Plato
Republished By Plato

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Poolside at President Trump’s resort near Miami, dozens of guests sunned last weekend on lounge chairs and chatted in cabanas. Golfers fanned out across multiple courses, and the hotel lobby hummed with activity for the first time in months.

But the reopening of Trump National Doral, the most important source of revenue for the president’s strained family business, came as new cases of the coronavirus spiked in surrounding Miami-Dade County and public health officials urged caution about resuming normal activity.

Virus cases in Florida exceeded 100,000 on Monday, with more than 3,100 deaths. About one-quarter of the cases have been in Miami-Dade County, a per capita rate twice the number statewide. On Tuesday, the county reported an average positive test rate of 12.4 percent in recent weeks. The latest single-day positive rate rose to 25.9 percent.

“We don’t really have too much good news going on countywide, said Mary Jo Trepka, chair of the epidemiology department at Florida International University. “We have to assume that people are going to be at some level of risk when they encounter other people.”

At the Doral resort last weekend, steps were being taken to prevent infections, even as many visitors and some staff members did not wear masks — something the president himself has been reluctant to do in public.

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Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

Ordering a meal at the poolside restaurant required a cellphone, as no menus were given out. Tables and chaise longues were disinfected between guests. On the golf courses, there were no ball-washers, coolers, or ice and water machines, among other changes.

Just as their father has, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who run the family business, have eagerly awaited the lifting of shutdown mandates in Florida and elsewhere. “At some point you have to open back up our country,” Eric Trump told Fox News on Saturday, when he was in Oklahoma for his father’s re-election rally.

The financial strain of the shutdowns on the Trump Organization has been real. The company’s revenue from its hotel operations is way down this year, and it recently requested a rent abatement from Palm Beach County, where the Trumps operate two golf courses on county land. It also negotiated with Deutsche Bank to reduce or delay its payments on loans from the bank, including about $125 million the Trump Organization borrowed when it was buying Doral in 2012, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

The bank agreed to a break, in line with those offered to other borrowers, but the Trump Organization concluded that the offer was not worth taking and turned it down, the people said.

Eric Trump, in an interview, said the company would “come out as strong” because it had relatively little debt and steady revenue from office buildings. The company also cut personnel and other costs at its hotels.

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Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

“I had to make some of the worst decisions hopefully that I’ll ever have to make in my life,” he said, referring to furloughs and layoffs.

Nationally, the company and entities associated with it filed notifications with state officials in March that it intended to lay off or furlough at least 1,500 employees. Notices were also sent to some of those employees, including at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, that their health insurance was being cut off.

Congress included language in a federal relief package that prohibited the Trump family from taking part in assistance programs controlled by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and the company decided not to seek loans from the Small Business Administration.

The four golf courses at Doral have been busy, with much of the play from members who live in the Miami area. But the resort’s 643-room hotel, which had seen declines in sales after Mr. Trump was elected, continues to face low room occupancy along with the broader hotel industry.

Rooms can be booked for about $100, less than the standard rate in the summer off-season in recent years. Two thirds of Miami-area hotel rooms were vacant as of the second week of June, according to STR, which tracks industry performance.

With the reopening on Monday of the Trump Organization’s Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx, all of the 20 Trump properties in the United States are up and running again, at least in part; even the tasting room at the Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Va., is once again welcoming visitors.

The president has done his part to raise the profile of his properties. He returned in recent weeks to courses in New Jersey and Virginia after two and a half months without playing golf, the longest break since he became president. And last month, as his company announced the reopening of its Los Angeles course, Mr. Trump celebrated in a post on Twitter.

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“So great to see our Country starting to open up again!” he wrote.

Even so, the Trump family operations are only partly back in business.

In Washington, the lobby at the hotel that served as a magnet for lobbyists and Trump administration officials, remains closed, as does BLT Prime, the high-end restaurant at the hotel. The main restaurants at Trump hotels in New York, Hawaii, Miami and Chicago also are still closed.

“Since the pandemic began, we have had to make many difficult decisions,” Mickael Damelincourt, the managing director of the Washington hotel, said in a letter last month to employees.

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Credit…Erin Scott/Reuters

Internationally, the family’s hotel in Vancouver remains closed. Trump Doonbeg, the golf resort in Ireland, is also closed, and the hotel there is not accepting reservations online until mid-July. Trump Dubai, a golf club in the United Arab Emirates, is open, but players are required to wear masks, even when on the golf course, the website says.

As they reopen, some Trump properties have drawn people protesting police brutality and the president’s statements about demonstrators after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“We wanted to bring this to his doorstep because we see how he speaks in discriminatory and inflammatory language,” said Nathalie Polo, 23, who led a protest outside the Doral property this month. “I felt like it was important to do something, and specifically, do something that might grab his attention.”

On Saturday, a lawyer dressed as the grim reaper was outside the Doral hotel. The lawyer, Daniel Uhlfelder, said he opposed the handling of the pandemic by the president and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who has followed Mr. Trump’s lead in pushing for a rapid return to business-as-usual even as the virus continues to spread.

“He is the model messenger of misinformation,” Mr. Uhlfelder said of Mr. Trump. “We have been fighting for several months to get Florida to do the right thing.”

Experts say it is possible for businesses like Trump National Doral to operate safely, but they also acknowledge that the president’s properties present a special case.

“The bottom line is, can a leader lead by example?” said Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert with Florida International University who helped design Miami-Dade County’s safety protocols for businesses. “That’s what needs to happen at every type of business — wear a mask, practice hygiene, social distance.”

When the president recently visited his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., while in the area to speak at the West Point graduation ceremony, temperature checks were required, but only when he was on the property, a person familiar with the situation said. There is no requirement that golfers or guests at Bedminster wear masks, and almost no one has done so, other than food service employees, the person said.

David Enrich contributed reporting.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/us/trump-doral-reopen-coronavirus.html

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