Safety Corner - June 2024
Concessions & game safety
Safety Corner is a monthly column published in CarnivalWarehouse.com's Amusement Warehouse Magazine written by Worldwide Safety Group's president, Avery Wheelock. Please consider a subscription to Amusement Warehouse Magazine to read this and more about the Carnival, Fair, and Amusement Park Industry.
Last month, we discussed safety for the employees that set up and tear down the rides, so now how about we talk about the food and games safety issues. I have seen a lot of issues with potential hazards since I have been doing insurance risk assessment inspections and I think now is as good a time as any to talk about ways to help try and reduce future incidents if we can.
Food trailers that have propane tanks are an area of potential issues like fires or explosions. The fryolators always seem to have pilot light issues of some kind whether it's the thermo coupler goes bad or maybe the burner tubes have deteriorated and have leaks or plugged ports. Propane gas is dangerous stuff to play with and can cause severe burns to the employees or people that are working around it. Please inform the people that are under your direction to be mindful of the potential exposures and show them the proper ways to ignite the burners. All service work should be performed by qualified personnel and most of the time that is done by hiring an outside contractor to service the equipment.
The propane tanks that are used to supply the gas to the trailer units or even equipment set up under tents should be secured either in a rack or secured from tipping over by use of a chain or some other means to support the tank(s) from tipping over. The hoses that connect the tanks to the equipment should be regularly checked for leaks or deterioration and repaired or replaced as needed. The same thing goes for compressed gas cylinders for soda machines. Those tanks must be secured from tipping over to hopefully stop them from becoming a rocket if the stem is knocked off. We have all seen the myth busters' videos of the hosts knocking the top off a cylinder and it taking off like a rocket and going through walls and anything in its path. Let's not have a rocket shooting down the midway at the local carnival or State fair anytime this year or ever.
Let's talk about fire safety. Do you teach your employees how to use a fire extinguisher? Do they know which type of fire extinguisher to use for which type of fire? Have you had them practice using a live fire extinguisher as part of their training? Years ago, when I was playing carnival up north, we played in a town where the fire Marshall wouldn't sign off on our permit to open until all employees had been trained in the P.A.S.S. technique of fire extinguisher training. If you are not familiar with that it stands for Pull, Aim, Squeeze, and Sweep. The company that refills and certifies your fire extinguishers can come out and hold a class for your employees on how to put out a fire.
If you're not doing this, please think about it. Every year at the Northwestern Showman's Safety Seminar they have the company that does Funtastic Shows fire service come and do a class on types of fire extinguishers and how to use them and they also bring a digital fire box and a special fire extinguisher to put out the fake fire. When I had the company come out, they brought water filled fire extinguishers and we set rags on fire in a pit and had employees put them out. However, you do it, just do something and make a sign in sheet for every person who attended, and you can also have certificates of completion made for those that put out the fire. Search the internet for certificate of PASS training and for PASS flyers to be posted in the food booths and anywhere appropriate.
Since we've been talking about fryolators I have had a couple things brought to my attention that I want to get you thinking about. How many of you have fryolator drain valves that point into the walkway of the food trailer? Do you remove the valve handles so that they don't accidentally get bumped open and spill hot oil onto the employee's feet. The next time you're near the fryolators look and see is the potential there for the handle to get bumped or snagged on clothing or on the drawstrings for the aprons the employees wear?
Do you store items that are used during operation such as cans of ketchup, cheese, or paper plates about the fryolaters? If an employee is reaching up and getting something out of a cabinet and drops it or knocks something else out of it and it falls into the hot oil it is going to splash and that is going to burn or catch fire anything that it splashes on weather it is a person or anything in the area. So, my suggestion is don't store anything above and if you must use it for storage, use it for things that will not be accessed while the oil is hot.
Another safety related topic in food is handling of knives while prepping food whether it is lemons for the Lemonade stand or cutting up onions and peppers for the grab joint. Do your employees wear cutting gloves? Have they been trained in how to cut up the stuff they are tasked with doing? Do you have an employee handbook for food workers that talks about all these things and does every employee receive a copy of it for use as a reference? How about can openers? Have any of the employees ever cut their hand while opening a can of cheese or tomato paste? These simple tasks create potential exposures, and you want to make sure that you have trained them how to perform these tasks safely and properly.
Most food trailers have top marquees that get folded up and flags installed on them. Please make sure that you have trained the employees in how to properly lift the top panels into place and how to install the decorative flags if they are used without getting blown away like a sail. Sometimes there are fold down steps on the corners of trailers and others you must use a tall ladder to get on top of the trailer. Please make sure that the people climbing the ladder have help holding the ladder if they must step off at the top or when getting back onto the ladder when their task is complete.
If you are parking food trailers near power lines and the employees are putting the flags up, make sure that you don't use flags that week or better yet don't get within the safety zone of the power lines. I don't want to get into the national electric code article 525 that deals with portable carnival electric but please be careful when working around power lines. There are so many fairgrounds out there that are “Grandfathered” but the industry is ever changing and improvements are made all the time, hopefully these older grounds will continue to upgrade to underground utilities. In any event please be aware of the surrounding hazards.
There are so many more things that we could discuss about food employee safety, but I just wanted to scratch the surface on food concessions this month. Please review your procedures and make any adjustments that might be needed. If you have some ideas that you think I should have touched on, please let me know and we can discuss them further in future articles.
How about the games on the midway? Let's talk about some of the exposures that we have on them to our employees and to our guests. We can start with dart games I know a lot of operators have gotten away from throwing darts and instead have switched to having nails in boxes and the players throw a bean bag at the balloon to make it touch the tip and pop but there are still the old faithful dart throwing games out there and those are what I want to talk about.
How many of you that have dart games sharpen your darts to make sure they will pop the balloon and not bounce back towards the player or the operator of the game? How about changing out balloons regularly to keep the balloons full and easy to pop instead of deflated and harder to pop, do you train your employees to look for this to keep the darts from bouncing back? One of the insurance companies that we do inspections for has a dart game bulletin that they put out years ago and it lays out some pretty simple steps to try and keep the players safe from harm while playing, I will include the bulletin and a sample of a sign that meets those requirements. Please consider using these to make sure you're doing everything you can to reduce potential injuries.
If the balloon game is in a center joint, does it have a solid barrier to prevent the dart from passing through to the other side and hitting someone? Just wanted to get you thinking about the possibilities involved with a dart game. Now how about we talk about machine gun games or shoot out the star. Do you have the gun barrels secured with a chain or cable so that they can't be turned into the crowd? Have you installed padding or rug on walls to help reduce ricochet shots?
One thing we recommend to concessionaires that we inspect is that they have safety glasses available for the players and that they have a sign posted that says they are available. If you have one of these games, please consider installing these signs and making the glasses available for the players. The operators of the game should also be wearing glasses to protect their eyes as well.
It is becoming rarer to see beer bottle bust and break a plate games, but if you are still using them there are some potential injuries with these games as well that we can try to reduce the potential of having. The beer bust was a great game for me back in the day, kinda like the stretch bottles were but the broken glass is very dangerous to deal with. The baseballs can bounce back if you don't have padding on the structure of the back of joint so, please check your padding and make sure it is still functioning as adequate padding. The broken glass is also an issue with getting into the skin of the baseballs and potentially into the hands of the operator or the players. Make the agents or operators wear gloves when retrieving the balls and rub off the broken glass before giving the ball to the player. Cages on the lights are also important, the days of florescent bulbs are almost completely gone but if you still have overhead florescent bulbs make sure that they have protective sleeves over the bulbs.
These are just a few things to get you thinking about midway games and food concession safety. I hope that you gained one piece of information from this short article on safety and can help make our industry safer and better every day. I can be reached via email avery@worldwidesafetygroup.com or at 813-505-3938 for any questions or comments, please feel free to provide feedback to help me better communicate these safety related messages. Remember “Our World Revolves Around Safety!”
Food trailers that have propane tanks are an area of potential issues like fires or explosions. The fryolators always seem to have pilot light issues of some kind whether it's the thermo coupler goes bad or maybe the burner tubes have deteriorated and have leaks or plugged ports. Propane gas is dangerous stuff to play with and can cause severe burns to the employees or people that are working around it. Please inform the people that are under your direction to be mindful of the potential exposures and show them the proper ways to ignite the burners. All service work should be performed by qualified personnel and most of the time that is done by hiring an outside contractor to service the equipment.
The propane tanks that are used to supply the gas to the trailer units or even equipment set up under tents should be secured either in a rack or secured from tipping over by use of a chain or some other means to support the tank(s) from tipping over. The hoses that connect the tanks to the equipment should be regularly checked for leaks or deterioration and repaired or replaced as needed. The same thing goes for compressed gas cylinders for soda machines. Those tanks must be secured from tipping over to hopefully stop them from becoming a rocket if the stem is knocked off. We have all seen the myth busters' videos of the hosts knocking the top off a cylinder and it taking off like a rocket and going through walls and anything in its path. Let's not have a rocket shooting down the midway at the local carnival or State fair anytime this year or ever.
Let's talk about fire safety. Do you teach your employees how to use a fire extinguisher? Do they know which type of fire extinguisher to use for which type of fire? Have you had them practice using a live fire extinguisher as part of their training? Years ago, when I was playing carnival up north, we played in a town where the fire Marshall wouldn't sign off on our permit to open until all employees had been trained in the P.A.S.S. technique of fire extinguisher training. If you are not familiar with that it stands for Pull, Aim, Squeeze, and Sweep. The company that refills and certifies your fire extinguishers can come out and hold a class for your employees on how to put out a fire.
If you're not doing this, please think about it. Every year at the Northwestern Showman's Safety Seminar they have the company that does Funtastic Shows fire service come and do a class on types of fire extinguishers and how to use them and they also bring a digital fire box and a special fire extinguisher to put out the fake fire. When I had the company come out, they brought water filled fire extinguishers and we set rags on fire in a pit and had employees put them out. However, you do it, just do something and make a sign in sheet for every person who attended, and you can also have certificates of completion made for those that put out the fire. Search the internet for certificate of PASS training and for PASS flyers to be posted in the food booths and anywhere appropriate.
Since we've been talking about fryolators I have had a couple things brought to my attention that I want to get you thinking about. How many of you have fryolator drain valves that point into the walkway of the food trailer? Do you remove the valve handles so that they don't accidentally get bumped open and spill hot oil onto the employee's feet. The next time you're near the fryolators look and see is the potential there for the handle to get bumped or snagged on clothing or on the drawstrings for the aprons the employees wear?
Do you store items that are used during operation such as cans of ketchup, cheese, or paper plates about the fryolaters? If an employee is reaching up and getting something out of a cabinet and drops it or knocks something else out of it and it falls into the hot oil it is going to splash and that is going to burn or catch fire anything that it splashes on weather it is a person or anything in the area. So, my suggestion is don't store anything above and if you must use it for storage, use it for things that will not be accessed while the oil is hot.
Another safety related topic in food is handling of knives while prepping food whether it is lemons for the Lemonade stand or cutting up onions and peppers for the grab joint. Do your employees wear cutting gloves? Have they been trained in how to cut up the stuff they are tasked with doing? Do you have an employee handbook for food workers that talks about all these things and does every employee receive a copy of it for use as a reference? How about can openers? Have any of the employees ever cut their hand while opening a can of cheese or tomato paste? These simple tasks create potential exposures, and you want to make sure that you have trained them how to perform these tasks safely and properly.
Most food trailers have top marquees that get folded up and flags installed on them. Please make sure that you have trained the employees in how to properly lift the top panels into place and how to install the decorative flags if they are used without getting blown away like a sail. Sometimes there are fold down steps on the corners of trailers and others you must use a tall ladder to get on top of the trailer. Please make sure that the people climbing the ladder have help holding the ladder if they must step off at the top or when getting back onto the ladder when their task is complete.
If you are parking food trailers near power lines and the employees are putting the flags up, make sure that you don't use flags that week or better yet don't get within the safety zone of the power lines. I don't want to get into the national electric code article 525 that deals with portable carnival electric but please be careful when working around power lines. There are so many fairgrounds out there that are “Grandfathered” but the industry is ever changing and improvements are made all the time, hopefully these older grounds will continue to upgrade to underground utilities. In any event please be aware of the surrounding hazards.
There are so many more things that we could discuss about food employee safety, but I just wanted to scratch the surface on food concessions this month. Please review your procedures and make any adjustments that might be needed. If you have some ideas that you think I should have touched on, please let me know and we can discuss them further in future articles.
How about the games on the midway? Let's talk about some of the exposures that we have on them to our employees and to our guests. We can start with dart games I know a lot of operators have gotten away from throwing darts and instead have switched to having nails in boxes and the players throw a bean bag at the balloon to make it touch the tip and pop but there are still the old faithful dart throwing games out there and those are what I want to talk about.
How many of you that have dart games sharpen your darts to make sure they will pop the balloon and not bounce back towards the player or the operator of the game? How about changing out balloons regularly to keep the balloons full and easy to pop instead of deflated and harder to pop, do you train your employees to look for this to keep the darts from bouncing back? One of the insurance companies that we do inspections for has a dart game bulletin that they put out years ago and it lays out some pretty simple steps to try and keep the players safe from harm while playing, I will include the bulletin and a sample of a sign that meets those requirements. Please consider using these to make sure you're doing everything you can to reduce potential injuries.
If the balloon game is in a center joint, does it have a solid barrier to prevent the dart from passing through to the other side and hitting someone? Just wanted to get you thinking about the possibilities involved with a dart game. Now how about we talk about machine gun games or shoot out the star. Do you have the gun barrels secured with a chain or cable so that they can't be turned into the crowd? Have you installed padding or rug on walls to help reduce ricochet shots?
One thing we recommend to concessionaires that we inspect is that they have safety glasses available for the players and that they have a sign posted that says they are available. If you have one of these games, please consider installing these signs and making the glasses available for the players. The operators of the game should also be wearing glasses to protect their eyes as well.
It is becoming rarer to see beer bottle bust and break a plate games, but if you are still using them there are some potential injuries with these games as well that we can try to reduce the potential of having. The beer bust was a great game for me back in the day, kinda like the stretch bottles were but the broken glass is very dangerous to deal with. The baseballs can bounce back if you don't have padding on the structure of the back of joint so, please check your padding and make sure it is still functioning as adequate padding. The broken glass is also an issue with getting into the skin of the baseballs and potentially into the hands of the operator or the players. Make the agents or operators wear gloves when retrieving the balls and rub off the broken glass before giving the ball to the player. Cages on the lights are also important, the days of florescent bulbs are almost completely gone but if you still have overhead florescent bulbs make sure that they have protective sleeves over the bulbs.
These are just a few things to get you thinking about midway games and food concession safety. I hope that you gained one piece of information from this short article on safety and can help make our industry safer and better every day. I can be reached via email avery@worldwidesafetygroup.com or at 813-505-3938 for any questions or comments, please feel free to provide feedback to help me better communicate these safety related messages. Remember “Our World Revolves Around Safety!”
