Editorial: Test all parking garages that pre-date new code

Friday, Oct. 29, 2004 | 8:58 a.m.

In January an elderly man driving on the fourth floor of the Golden Nugget parking garage in downtown Las Vegas mistakenly accelerated. His car plunged through a concrete panel and fell to the pavement below. He and his wife were killed. On Monday an elderly man was driving on the second floor of the same garage when he, too, for an as-yet unknown reason, crashed through a concrete panel and landed on the pavement. He and his elderly companion were seriously injured.

After the first accident, Paul Wilkins, director of Las Vegas' Building and Safety Department, ordered the Golden Nugget to provide his office with a report, prepared by professional engineers, on the structural soundness of the protective concrete panels. The hotel-casino, however, produced only a preliminary report, which stated that the garage met all the building codes that were in effect when it was built in 1985. A final, more detailed report would have revealed the amount of stress the 6-inch concrete panels could withstand before breaking. Changes to the building code in 1994 required the concrete panels in new parking garages to withstand 6,000 pounds of pressure. The changes did not apply to existing garages, though.

After this week's accident, Wilkins insisted that the hotel-casino provide his office with the final safety report. Tim Poster, co-owner of the Golden Nugget initially resisted, saying Tuesday he didn't think a final report was necessary. Only after a threat by Wilkins to close the garage did the hotel-casino's executives promise to subject the concrete panels to stress tests. In our view, this was not the Golden Nugget's most shining moment. Its executives should have submitted the final report months ago, and certainly they should have cooperated 100 percent immediately after Monday's accident.

We also believe that the protective panels in all parking garages built before 1994 should undergo the same stress tests. If tragic accidents can happen in the Golden Nugget's garage, could they happen in other garages that do not meet the latest building standard? We'd rather this determination be made through testing, rather than through another accident.