Inspections Avert Nightspot Tragedy
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“If our inspector hadn’t found those deficiencies and gotten them corrected, we would have had a disaster here,” said Assistant Chief A1 Montez of the San Jose, Calif., Fire Department. He was speaking of the conditions at Mario’s Place, a night-spot gutted early last June 21 by a two-alarm fire which erupted with at least JO persons in the building.
Montez heads the San Jose Fire Department fire prevention bureau. His inspectors made nearly 7500 inspections during the 1975-76 fiscal year, returning as necessary to make sure the more than 30,000 code violations were being corrected. Under local law, fire inspectors are empowered to set reasonable compliance deadlines. Then, if necessary, they issue citations imposing legal penalties on building owners.
These quasi-police powers, accompanied by a schedule of fees to cover inspection costs, don’t win any popularity contests for the inspectors. But the June 21 fire illustrates how such work can save lives as well as minimize property loss.
Mario’s Place, a 50-year-old one-story brick structure, contained 4000 square feet of space in bar, lounge, and dance floor areas. An unsuccessful arson attempt was made there earlier in the year. At 1:53 a.m. June 21, an arsonist struck again, apparently throwing flammable liquid against a storage room window. This cut off the alley exit.
Flames in alley
Several customers who had just left the building returned to report flames in the alley. Entering storage rooms in that part of the building, where he had seen nothing amiss moments earlier, the bartender encountered heavy smoke. As he retreated, flames followed him out the hall door. He phoned the fire department, then helped evacuate other employees and patrons through the main doors.
“It went fast,” said the leader of the band playing at Mario’s that night. As his musicians tried to collect their instruments, “the smoke got so thick we couldn’t see,” he added.
The entire first-alarm response—two engines, an aerial, and a district chief—was from Station 3, only four blocks away. When these units arrived, flames were visible at the alley door, with heavy smoke coming out both front and rear doors. While lines were laid into the building, a second alarm was struck for backup lines plus additional manpower to help with ventilation and search.
Three fire fighters hurt
The fire was quickly controlled. Damage to the building and contents totaled $120,000. Except for one employee who suffered smoke inhalation, no occupant was injured; three fire fighters were slightly hurt.
Fire Inspector R. P. Santos had visited Mario’s on October 4, 1976. His tour of the premises turned up half a dozen violations of San Jose’s fire prevention code. Among the more serious ones were:
- The two double swinging exit doors at the front and rear of the building were fitted with illegal upper and lower sliding bolt locks. Instead of full-width panic bars, small panic hardware that extended only part way across the door was used. (The code requires that simply by exerting a maximum of 15 pounds push against the door, with no prior knowledge or operation of any locking devices, a person must be able to open such a door.)Interior wall paneling throughout the building had too high a flame-spread rate.
On a return visit November 3, Santos found several of the violations corrected.
“The biggest problem,” he said later, “was the paneling. We could have required the building owner to rip it all out, which would have been a great expense. But it’s our practice where possible to try to keep an owner in business safely rather than take measures which might force him out of business. So we allowed a reasonable time to provide adequate fire retardancy by coating the paneling.”
Corrections made
The walls were sprayed, burned-out exit light bulbs were replaced, wiring and fire extinguisher deficiencies were remedied, and on November 22, Santos paid a final visit to make actual (lamespread tests on the paneling directly on the walls. Samples had been checked earlier by the bureau. The results were positive.
At that time, a dance permit for Mario’s, requested since September 23, was issued. This is another area in which the bureau has power through interaction with other municipal agencies—to regulate the use of occupancies in keeping with fire safety.
Although Mario’s had no second floor, the nature of the fire and the minimum exits available could easily have led to heavy loss of life had the 1976 code violations not been corrected. Montez cited as parallels the October 23, 1976, fire which took 25 lives in New York’s Puerto Rican Social Club, and the September 1, 1972, nightclub fire in Montreal which killed 37. In both those instances, locked doors were a major cause of fatalities which, according to Montez, “could have happened here as well.”
To help make inspections and callbacks on time and to correlate inspection data with fire experience, San Jose recently put into use a computer-based FIRES system (fire inspection reporting and evaluation system). Inspections are scheduled automatically. This has added greatly to t he efficiency of the fire prevention bureau.
