Public Health Issues
In 2022, as you know, our board made the call to cancel the tourney about two weeks before the event due to concerns about the rapidly spiking incidence of Covid at that time. This was an extremely difficult call, one that caused some internal strife in our organization. Based on past experience and extensive internal discussions, our Board voted to adopt the following policy regarding potential impacts of Covid or other health concerns this year and going forward: we will follow the mandates of the civic authorities (LA County Dept. of Public Health, and the City of Santa Monica), and not make an independent judgment about the advisability of going ahead with the event based on health concerns. There may be other, unforeseen reasons that might force us to cancel (we can’t see any right now, but that’s what “unforeseen” means), but as far as the pandemic goes, we’ll follow the lead of the civic authorities. That also applies to the question of vaccine mandates. Right now, there is no vaccination mandate in place generally, and so we do not have a vaccination requirement in order to register. If one is imposed by the civic authorities, we will impose it, but if not, not. We reserve the right to impose a mask mandate, or to have a mask-only division, but at the moment, we do not see that as likely.
Furthermore, due to permitting and waste challenges, we may be compelled not to have on-field food/refreshments other than water this year. We are working on meeting the challenges imposed by the Dept. of Public Health, but in the event the logistics or costs become prohibitive, field snacks may not be available. We are not thrilled with this decision, as we’ve always prided ourselves on it in years past, but we hope players will understand and, in the event we can’t do it, will make arrangements to bring their own.
Air Quality info
Purple Air – real time air quality measurement map