Las Vegas restaurant workers express frustration over filing for unemployment claims | Eater Vegas

"I learned that Christopher Flores Atup, who had been working as a server at Yard House in Town Square a few miles south of the Las Vegas Strip, was laid off when nonessential businesses closed on March 17; Darden Restaurants provided compensation for a three-week period based on hours worked, but after that employees were left to pursue unemployment. He described calling the unemployment line for six hours straight—starting calls at 7:50 a.m. before the 8 a.m. lines opened—as estimated wait times grew and sometimes the phone didn’t even ring, and after six weeks of calling he finally got through. As a single parent of two he applied for WIC and remains worried about returning to work with reduced hours (Nevada allowed restaurants to operate at 50 percent capacity with no seating in the bar area as of May 9), expecting fewer servers and shifts and uncertainty about how to calculate unemployment as a tipped server." - Krista Diamond