Clark County, Nevada, commissioners reinstated business mask mandates on Tuesday in an emergency meeting. The rules, which run through Aug. 17, require all businesses – including RV dealerships – to mandate mask wearing for employees working indoors.
The mandate, which involves only employees and not customers/guests, began Thursday morning. The commissioners’ decision comes in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases in and around Las Vegas.
Earlier in July, concerts by Garth Brooks and Bruno Mars, plus an Ultimate Fighting Championship event featuring Conor McGregor, drew scores of visitors to the area. Cases rose, leading the Southern Nevada Health Department to issue a recommendation July 16 that vaccinated and unvaccinated residents wear masks in crowded indoor public areas.
Still, Johnnie Walker RV Vice President Darcy Walker-Fitch said the county business mandate came as a surprise.
Walker-Fitch, the RVDA state delegate in Nevada, said her dealership was putting together a company mask policy for non-vaccinated employees Tuesday after a couple recent Covid cases.
“We were trying to get in front of the outbreaks to help slow/stop the spread,” she said. “Timely enough, just hours later, the state mandate went into effect and now all employees must wear masks, vaccinated or not.”
Like other reports from Las Vegas-area businesses, Walker-Fitch said the change created confusion among the dealership’s employees at its three locations. When the state’s mask mandate was instituted early in the pandemic, she said officials visited businesses and cited them when employees were seen maskless.
“We are following the mandate,” she said, “though the sweltering heat in Las Vegas makes it tough, for sure.”
Temperatures reached a high of 99 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday and were as high as 106 degrees on Tuesday.
County commissioners will revisit the mandate before its expiration Aug. 17.
The mandates allow RV techs who are in their own service bays or in the RV they are servicing to be mask-free. Salespeople alone in their office also may remove their masks. Walker-Fitch said various Johnnie Walker RV employees have not received the vaccine and do not plan to get it but the dealership will do its best to follow the changing rules.
“We are doing our best to keep our employees and our customers safe,” she said. “We have continued the Covid sanitization/cleaning and are working to follow all the CDC guidelines.”
