The Southern Nevada Health District is upholding its decision to require lifeguards to be present at pools in gyms, citing an incident where someone died at a Las Vegas Athletic Club pool in February.
The District said in a news release that it is upholding its decision to end exceptions granted to certain gyms that allowed them not to have lifeguards at their pools and instead allow remote monitoring.
“An important factor in the Health District’s decision was video showing an incident in February 2024 in which an LVAC customer died in one of its indoor pool facilities,” the release said.
LVAC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lifeguard exception was first granted to LVAC in 2020, and several other gyms were then granted the same exception. Since the lifeguard exceptions were granted in 2020 there have been 29 pool closures at 21 locations due to rule violations, the SNHD said.
“The Health District determined these waivers were not adequate to ensure the facilities were protecting the public after two serious incidents occurred, including the death, and repeated failures by facilities to meet the requirements of the variance,” the release said.
LVAC has said it operated its pools for over 40 years without lifeguards and that it shouldn’t need them. Gym pools operate similarly to ones operated by homeowners associations, the company said, because they aren’t open to the public and only members can access them.
The company also said its narrow profit margin makes it too expensive to hire lifeguards.
Gyms that operated with a lifeguard exception now need to submit a lifeguard plan to keep their pools open. The SNHD said several EoS Fitness locations and a UFC FIT location have submitted plans to hire lifeguards.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.