Lappert’s, Love’s Bakery, Eskimo Candy and several other companies are facing $340,000 in total fines after state and federal officials cited them for dozens of safety violations.

The Hawaii and U.S. occupational safety departments inspected 10 tenants of Unicold Corporation’s refrigerated food warehouse in Honolulu and found a lack of proper exit routes, inadequate electrical equipment and unguarded machinery.

“The workers were exposed to grave hazards due to the employers’ decision to obstruct emergency routes to enlarge the available storage space,” DLIR Director Dwight Takamine said in a news release Thursday. “We are very fortunate that a tragic event did not occur, especially as the danger involved the potential of leaking ammonia, which could have exposed workers to asphyxiation, chemical and thermal burns, and other hazards. This could have been worse than the tragedy that occurred in the Waikele Bunker explosion in April 2011.” 

The state Occupational Safety and Health Division issued 59 “serious citations” with proposed fines of up to $89,265. The remainder of the fines presumably comes from the federal inspections.

For more information, visit http://labor.hawaii.gov/hiosh/ or http://www.osha.gov.

— Nathan Eagle