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Broken air conditioning crippling downtown Las Vegas wedding chapel

Posted at 6:19 PM, Jul 26, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-26 21:33:31-04

Owners of a small business are losing sleep and lots of money because of a fight for help.

Scenic Las Vegas Weddings, a chapel downtown, is hemorrhaging business because its air conditioning has been out for more than a week.

Melissa Tomsik, the chapel owner, says the landlord has been dragging his feet to fix the problem.

She says five different couples have canceled weddings because of the temperatures inside that have gotten up into the mid-80s.

Tomsik says July is already their slowest time of year.

"We need every dollar from every wedding that we can get right now," she said.

The business has thousands of dollars in bills to pay, from rent to payroll to limousine services.

"Every little bit matters and I'm getting an ulcer," Tomsik said. "I don't sleep. Last night was just a nightmare."

She emailed 13 Action News and within hours, the landlord, Don Kudler, called a repairman to check out the chapel's AC.

Kudler says a different repairman went out last week, but now that man is inexplicably not returning any calls.

Kudler says he's been on the phone for days trying to straighten it out. 

"[Tomsik and I] had a pretty good relationship up until now and this is a difficulty that I'm caught in the middle of because they need air conditioning to run a business," Kudler said.

The second repairman showed up Wednesday, but without a ladder tall enough to reach the unit.

He said he would return Thursday.

Kudler says once the problem is diagnosed, it should take only a few hours to fix.

If not, the chapel is at risk of losing another wedding this weekend.