Orleans official calls most violations minor

Of the 625 building code violations found at The Orleans in the spring, owner Boyd Gaming is quick to point out, only one required a repair to a fire safety system.

And that violation was, according to a statement by Boyd Gaming, "two alarm (devices) in individual guest rooms were not functioning properly. For context, the Orleans has more than 2,000 of these (devices), and all but these two worked perfectly."

Bill Noonan, a senior vice president at Boyd, also wrote that The Orleans hopes to correct by mid-April the 43 percent of its violations that are currently still open.

Of The Orleans' total violations, more than half were maintenance items, which are "typically minor issues," according to Noonan.

He noted that, for the sake of efficiency, the county is allowing casinos to fix those lesser items by bundling them together -- for architectural work and contractor bids -- instead of fixing them one by one.

That accounts for a seeming lag by casinos in resolving violations.

But one recurring electrical violation at The Orleans and at other resorts caused concern to Northern Nevada fire consultant Terry Taylor.

"Anytime you have open and exposed electrical ... you have a potential for an electrical fault or short," Taylor explained. "And that means you have a cause of a fire. And since there's no sprinkler heads up there, fire can work its way around, and create a greater problem than normal."

Boyd's Rob Meyne declined to talk about those violations in The Orleans' convention space: "We don't want to get into speculation about hypothetical situations."

He added, "The (notice of violation) you cited was not considered an imminent threat to the safety of the building by the county and was corrected as of September 10, 2009."

Sam's Town, another Boyd property, had by early January corrected 34 percent of its 183 violations.