Las Vegas food service workers not required to wear masks

It can be downright baffling. Say you drive through a Starbucks for coffee, then hit a bakery-cafe chain for your breakfast pastry. Maybe you drive by a national fast-food franchise for lunch, then get curbside pickup from your favorite local restaurant for dinner.

All of the employees you come in contact with are food service workers. While some of them wear protective face masks to help slow the spread of COVID-19, others don’t.

What gives?

“We don’t require it,” said Dr. Cort Lohff, director of the residency program at the Southern Nevada Health District.

But that statement comes with a caveat.

“We do recommend them, based on what the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) put out that wearing face coverings can be a way to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus,” Lohff said. “Especially the people who may be carrying the virus but may not be symptomatic.”

Dr. Shadaba Asad, medical director of infectious disease at University Medical Center, confirmed that mask use isn’t mandatory for food service workers in Southern Nevada and said any recommendation that they do wear them has nothing to do with their profession.

“I think everybody should wear cloth masks,” Asad said. “The one way of protecting yourself at such a time is to have all of your public wearing some kind of face covering, so the person who is talking or breathing can’t release the particles into the air around them.”

In short: A mask isn’t to protect yourself from getting the virus, it’s to protect others from getting it from you, since many people are carriers but have no symptoms.

Washoe County Health District Officer Kevin Dick said Friday that after talking to members of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce who are concerned about masks not being worn by employees of essential services, he contacted the office of Gov. Steve Sisolak to ask that face coverings be made mandatory for those workers.

A spokeswoman for the governor’s office didn’t return a request for comment Monday; neither did a spokeswoman for the Southern Nevada Health District.

Some local restaurants are not requiring masks at this time.

McDonald’s corporate office announced on its website last week that it had obtained 100 million masks to be distributed throughout the chain. But an employee of local franchisee WBF Management who declined to be named said last week that, while the masks had been made available to employees, they weren’t mandatory.

During a Monday visit to a Henderson McDonald’s, only one of two employees with whom a customer made contact was wearing a mask.

Other restaurants are taking a harder line.

“We are following the recommendations from the CDC that all team members are wearing protective face coverings during work,” said Jenny Gidge, vice president of operations for Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Las Vegas, adding that the requirement extends to delivery drivers for third-party services.

“I insist upon it,” said Liam Dwyer, chef and owner of 7th & Carson downtown. “If it saves lives, I’m all about it.”

“Everyone’s got the mask and gloves,” said Donald Lemperle, chef and owner of VegeNation downtown and in Henderson. “It’s important that we let the guests see that we’re wearing them for safety and that we understand, so we can put their minds at ease.”

Players Locker in Downtown Summerlin is the only local member of the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group that’s offering takeout and delivery. Tom Kaplan, the group’s senior managing partner, said employees are required to wear masks, and he wears one when he goes to the restaurant.

“Everything we’re doing, we want to do by medical experts, not politicians, not TV doctors,” Kaplan said.

Gidge said Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf workers were each issued one mask made of cloth, with a coffee filter insert, and instructions on how to make their own if they want another.

“They must take the masks home and wash them every day,” she said. “That’s why we showed them how to build their own masks.” She said employees are instructed to wash their hands before donning their masks and not to wear them to the restroom.

“These are new times that no one’s used to,” she said, “so I think any extra precautions we’re taking, being in the food industry, we should.”

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter. Capital reporter Bill Dentzer contributed to this story.