Disney CEO Bob Chapek says the Disneyland reopening guidelines are ‘arbitrary’

Disney CEO Bob Chapek recently criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom as the theme park waits for the state to release opening guidelines.

Chapek spoke with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” about how the state’s guidelines for reopening businesses are too strict, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

• “It seems to me that the guidelines that are set up by the state of California are more stringent than any state across the country,” said the exec. “If you look at the history of Disney and what we’ve been able to do during the reopening — rather than arbitrary standards set up without regard to actual fact — and what we’ve been able to do as a company, I think you’d come to a different decision about reopening Disneyland.”

What California is doing

Newsrom recently sent state health officials to Disneyland Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood to see if they could understand more about how to reopen those theme parks, which I wrote about for Deseret.

• Newsom also sent leaders down to Florida to look at Walt Disney World, which reopened in the summer, as I wrote for Deseret.

Newsom is still in the process of writing reopening guidelines for Disneyland, and it’s unclear when the park will reopen. He said visiting Walt Disney World is a part of that process.

• “I have a whole team that spends their time not only getting the answer to that question, but asking those same questions,” Newsom said during the news conference, according to reports. “And so this week, as a proof point of that, we have supported an effort to actually find out directly by sending our own team to these sites, as relates to theme parks, to get a better sense of what’s going on. While we absolutely take people’s word for information that they provide us, we want to see things for ourselves.”