Las Vegas restaurants take steps to cool employees, heat complaints to OSHA rise

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – The dangerous heat hitting the Las Vegas valley is wearing down restaurant workers, especially those who spend most of their time in the kitchen.

According to data from the Nevada State Occupation Safety and Health Administration, a third of all the heat complaints in June came from the accommodation and food industry.

Despite the oppressive heat, people still have to work, and some restaurant workers are finding creative ways to stay cool on the job.

“This is like a little personal air conditioner I use. I got it on the internet. It just blows air up, blows air down,” Jason Cohn of Brooklyn’s Best Pizza said.

He was wearing a white device around his neck that looks like headphones. “Keeps me cool,” he added.

Cohn has to keep cool while he’s stirring two large pots of tomato sauce, which is a four-hour process.

Business is slow on Friday at Brooklyn’s Best Pizza located at 241 West Charleston Boulevard, however, it is mostly due to the post-Fourth of July holiday, according to owner Joey Gonzalez.

“It’s hard, it’s hard in this hot weather,” Gonzalez said of working in these temperatures. “It’s hard on the body, you know? I tell them bring a change of shirt. With the heat, you got to overstaff. This way, you give the guys a break.”

Data from OSHA showed that in June there were 108 complaints from Southern Nevada tied to the heat and last year there were only 22 complaints.

Forty of them, which is a third of the complaints, were from the accommodation and food industry.

Health experts couldn’t stress enough the importance of staying hydrated.

“You have to think of heat like stress. That’s what it is. It puts stress on our body. It puts stress on everything, and that stress can then subsequently cause a major illness to manifest,” Dr. Ketan Patel, the emergency department medical director at UMC said.

As for Gonzalez, he has taken steps to protect his staff.

“You got swamp cooler number one. You got little baby a/c number 1,” Gonzalez said pointing at portable air conditioning units in his kitchen.

However, even all that he said is not enough.

“Our a/c’s are maintained. We had to fix them twice this year because of the heat. You know, they break down frequently, because it’s a lot of demand,” Gonzalez said.

When it comes to heat illness claims, nearly half of the compensation claims the state of Nevada awarded from 2016 to last year were for temperature extremes.

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