Greg Olsen: Washington bowling centers are ready to roll

As the state executive director of the Washington State Bowling Proprietors’ Association, our group of 65 member centers are ready and prepared to reopen with enhanced protocols recommended by Gov. Inslee in the fight against COVID-19. Our industry believes these decisions have helped save lives. We also cannot thank enough the thousands of front-line workers, who, despite considerable risk, selflessly continue to do their jobs for our benefit.

That being said, our economy is facing great hardship. Local businesses across industries must now re-emerge in a safe, sustainable way, while keeping a close eye on important health benchmarks, including hospital capacity and positive testing rates. While we completely understand that the top priority remains health and safety, it is time to put our state back to work by reopening nonessential businesses, including the bowling centers across Washington.

Each year, nearly 70 million people bowl in the United States. It is consistently one of the most popular sports and leisure activities in the country for people of all ages. In towns and cities everywhere, bowling centers have served as a focal point of the community for generations of families and league bowlers.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the bowling industry has lost more than $25 million in revenue statewide, and nearly 1,200 employees were furloughed. Bowling lanes, including their restaurants, bars, arcades and meeting spaces that host local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, church groups and business meetings, were shuttered.

We understand why some people would have reservations about returning to bowling at this time. Bowling is a very tactile experience, where equipment and shoes are frequently shared and a lot of celebratory high-fives are exchanged. It is important to note, however, that as an industry, bowling has always made cleanliness a priority given the volume of traffic and shared nature of our equipment, but safety and sanitation efforts have intensified to new levels during this time. Centers are individually applying deep and thorough health and disinfection practices, as well as closely monitoring government policy changes, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, government directives and public health advancements. Relying on the best available sanitization methods from infectious disease experts at the federal and state levels, our centers continue to refine and update their respective plans accordingly. In addition, we are constantly talking to bowling centers in areas of the country that have reopened or are ready to do so in order to learn and apply their best practices to centers waiting to reopen.

Many bowling centers nationally have already begun welcoming guests back to the lanes, but have done so only after thoroughly enhancing health and safety policies. Our industry trade association, the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America, has worked tirelessly over the past several months to guide its 3,400 member centers in the U.S. through the process with resources, counsel and shared best practices on how to fully prepare for and keep their facilities safe and fun for bowlers and employees upon their reopening.

Unlike many other public businesses deemed nonessential, bowling centers are large facilities, often encompassing 30,000-40,000 square feet of space. We are well positioned to institute social distancing practices, such as situating our guests on every other lane (and one lane alone is about 1,000 square feet). Additionally, centers are personally applying deep and thorough health, safety and disinfection practices that include:

Sanitizing every ball after use

Thoroughly cleaning every set of shoes after use

Providing hand sanitizers for all customers

Handling all transactions with as minimal contact as possible

Providing PPE (masks and gloves) for all staff on site (where required)

Regular cleaning/sanitization of all gaming and high contact surfaces throughout business hours

Screening workers for illness

Now is the time to reopen the local economy as safely as possible, for essential and non-essential businesses. Let us begin with reduced occupancy, physical distancing measures in place, face mask wearing and stringent sanitization protocols. Through daily data monitoring, we can evaluate the health benchmarks. If need be, we can marginally pull back or move forward.

To our thousands of customers, the bowling center operators of Washington can assure them that we are ready to roll when they are.

Greg Olsen is executive director of the Washington State Bowling Proprietors’ Association.