Business owners testify revamped fire code too costly, too harshly enforced
JIM BARON, Special to The Call
03/27/2007
PROVIDENCE -- The slightly more than five hours of testimony from dozens of small businessmen and women heard by a House committee studying the effect of fire code changes made in the wake of The Station nightclub tragedy boiled down to a simple plea articulated by Donna Polofsky of Warwick’s Humidor Smoke Shop: "Please don’t put us out of business."
The lengthy session underlined the expense, fear and confusion that resulted from legislators’ vows, in the wake of the 2003 fire that killed 100 concertgoers in a West Warwick roadhouse called The Station after a rock ’n’ roll band ignited stage pyrotechnics in a room where the walls and ceiling were lined with flammable foam, to make Rhode Island the top fire safety state in the nation.
Some of the provisions the business people complained to the committee about Monday in fact existed under the previous code, or could be resolved through an appeals process that they didn’t pursue or in some cases didn’t even know about. Other problems stemmed from the code being interpreted and enforced differently by fire marshals in different communities or even by different fire districts within the same community. Some gripes involved price gouging by the limited number of Rhode Island companies that do required work such as installing sprinkler systems. In some cases there are "blanket variances" that allow relief to specific types of businesses, but many of the business owners to whom they would apply don’t know about them and are not given notice by the state or their local communities.
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