Restaurateur June Hamada’s body found in swimming pool

Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2000 | 11:14 a.m.

Metro Police are treating the apparent drowning of noted Las Vegas restaurateur June Hamada as a natural death pending an autopsy.

Hamada, 61, owner of the four Hamada of Japan restaurants in Las Vegas, was found dead in a swimming pool in a gated southwest Las Vegas neighborhood Monday night.

"We are treating this as a natural death unless the Clark County Coroner rules differently," Metro homicide Sgt. Rocky Alby said today. "Our department has been made aware of the death but is not conducting an investigation at this time."

Metro's general assignment detectives responded to the scene of the drowning that occurred shortly after 8 p.m. in the 8000 block of Pinnacle Peak Avenue in Spanish Trails near Rainbow Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue

Clark County Fire Department paramedics responded to the Hamada home to find June Hamada fully clothed and unconscious in the pool, department spokesman Bob Leinbach said.

Efforts to revive Hamada didn't work, and she died at the scene, Leinbach said.

Hamada of Japan restaurants are located at 958 E. Flamingo Road and inside the Flamingo Hilton, MGM Grand and the Resort at Summerlin.

The first Hamada of Japan opened on Flamingo Road in 1967, a spokesman at the restaurant's corporate headquarters said today. She was co-owner of the eateries with her husband, Jay.

The Hamada at the Resort at Summerlin is the newest of the local restaurant chain. It opened Sept. 21, two months after the hotel-casino began operations.