Restaurant tank was runnin' on empty

Milford - The intense smell of propane gas in the kitchen of the Chatterbox Restaurant at the Gold Key Lake community center brought the Dingmans Fire Department and an ambulance there in a hurry this past Monday afternoon. Jesse Wilkes, head chef, at the restaurant sensed something was wrong when he was having trouble with the burners on all the gas appliances in the kitchen and he smelled the strong noxious odor of leaking propane gas. “I wasn’t sure what the problem was but I knew something was wrong so I immediately called Security and went outside.” In a just a short time the Dingmans Fire Department arrived with several firemen and emergency vehicles. The fire personnel used an electronic gas sniffer to try and determine where the gas was leaking from. After a short period of time they determined that there was no propane gas leak at all. As a matter of fact the restaurant had run out of gas. What Jesse smelled was the odor of the chemical which gas companies add to the odorless propane gas to give it that familiar “propane smell.” When propane tanks begin to run out the chemical that creates the propane smell is in heavier concentration at the bottom of the propane tank and it is that odor that is given off. Within 45 minutes they gave the “all clear” signal and the Gold Key restaurant and community building was back in action.