Police Chief On Graton Opening Day Gridlock: "It was a total mess"

A day after the new Graton Resort & Casino made its debut amidst massive local traffic disruption, Police Chief Brian Masterson appeared before the Rohnert Park Chamber of Commerce and described the scene as one the area infrastructure was not set up to handle.

In an article published in the November 15 edition of The Community Voice, writer Jud Synder quotes Masterson as telling the business crowd that neighboring stores like Home Depot and Walmart posted No Parking signs, but casino-goers ignored them.

"Traffic officers didn’t have time to put citations under windshield wipers because they were too busy trying to prevent total gridlock, which actually did happen for a short period of time," said Masterson. "It was a total mess. We had to bar people from going in the casino, for it was at total capacity inside."

Masterson estimates 15,000 folks showed up on opening day according to the article.