86 Dead and Counting. Where was the Common Sense?

The BBQ Pit
61

The Rhode Island building code probably isn’t available online, but it is based on the National Building Codes (which I am not familiar with) according to buildingteam.com.

From what I have heard in the news, they did have sufficient egress provided. What was almost definitely not up to code was the foam eggcrate material all over the walls for noise control purposes. I don’t know the specific material properties, but I can all but guarantee it did not have the low flame spread & smoke generated ratings for use as a wall covering. I don’t know when the last inspection by the fire marshall was, but if that stuff was on the walls when he was through, he should be sacked.

Building codes usually only apply to new construction and it is pretty rare for old buildings to be required to conform to new codes. If the building did not udergo a change of use or major remodeling, there would be no requirement for adding sprinklers (at least in the jurisdictions in which I have practiced).

Properly functioning sprinklers may or may not have prevented the eventual loss of the building, especially since the walls were covered with a fast burning fuel source (the soundproofing eggcrate foam). Sprinklers definitely would have slowed the spread of the fire which would have allowed more people to escape. Sprinklers discharging also would have convinced people that this wasn’t just part of the show and that they should GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BUILDING NOW.

ScoobyTX, PE (not licensed in Rhode Island)

62

Hey if you guys are such night owls, maybe I can talk a few of you into seeing Dr. Strangelove when it’s the midnight movie at the Inwood next weekend? Meet somewhere for dinner, grab a couple drinks at the Inwood Lounge, then watch Kubrick’s classic documentary of the Bush II administration? Could be fun.

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As the wife of a musician who plays really small venues like this on a daily basis, I can say this much:

The club owner wasn’t looking at the band’s gear. They don’t do that. In a club as small as The Station, the owner, if he was even there, was most likely busy doing his books, or working the bar, or any other thing having to do with the business end of stuff.

The owner most likely at least knew of the band, but may not have known about the pyrotechnics. And I’d bet money that when the band showed up, with all of their gear, the owner just went on about his business, letting the band and their people set their gear up the way it needed to be set up, perhaps stopping occasionally if one of the band or crew had a question about where they could set something or plug something in.

If the pyrotechnics were indeed as small as what I’ve been reading, hell, I’d bet my damn house that the club owner never saw them. They could easily have been brought in via a band member’s gig bag, and set down next to someone’s rig. If the owner ever took a look up there, he may have just seen a small little thing up there, assumed that it was a piece of equipment, and never gave it a second thought.

From what I’ve read, the club owner was up to code–that is, he was up to RI code required for buildings such as his. At this point, I’m finding it difficult to blame the club owner. I’d also be willing to bet that what he’s saying about not being asked about the pyrotechnics is true. He was up to code, but he also knew that he didn’t have a sprinkler system. And because he was up to code, he probably also knew quite well what the bad ideas were, too–like pyrotechnics. He probably knew that doing something like that, in a club like his, would be a really, really bad thing, and had he been asked, he’d have said no.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some codes changed, though. But right now, I’m just not seeing how the club owner can be blamed. The band and their staff, yes, particularly if they really didn’t ask. If that’s the case, then someone there needs a nice looooooong stretch in jail. Their thoughtlessness and stupidity resulted in the deaths of nearly a hundred people.

The fact that this was so absolutely avoidable is what angers me most. A few freaking minutes of scoping the venue should have told someone that pyrotechnics on stage would NOT be a good idea. Now 96 people are dead. Nearly two hundred more are injured. And scores more are suffering because someone they know and love was hurt or killed because of someone’s incredibly stupid actions.

64

I have to agree with Persephone and speak for a moment in defense of the other club owners who didn’t speak up about this – they probably felt that their dressing down of the band (meaning band and band staff) would be sufficient to prevent future incidents of this type. They may have each received assurances (lies) that they’d never pull this crap again.

CNN is currently reporting that the club owners and Great White are disputing whether or not there was an OK to use the pyro – the band is claiming that it was not only known, it was approved. I can’t see why any club owner would approve of such a thing – they’re not going to lose money if there are no pyros, they may lose everything if there are. It’s an easy question to answer.

The victims and their families are in my thoughts and prayers. It’s a terrible, senseless thing.

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I’m surprised that there were over 236 people at a Great White concert.

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I was a big Great White fan back when I was 14-15. “Twice Shy” was probably the defining album of my late middle/early high school years. (Hey, I was 14.)

I think there are two possibilities here:

1.) The band’s manager was talking to the club owner and said, “Oh, by the way, we’ve got some tiny little pyro effects for the opening number; that’s OK, right?” The club manager says “Yeah, whatever.”

2.) The band never mentioned it.

I’m leaning toward #2, but it doesn’t matter, because as they say in my business, if you didn’t document it, you didn’t do it. At the very least, this should have been mentioned in the rider.

The funniest thing about the rider is the insistence on calling the band Jack Russell’s Great White. I’ll bet he’d give a testicle to have someone else’s name on that right now.

67

You may be right guys. The club owner may have taken all the steps he should have in order to fulfil his duty to provide a safe venue for his customers to see the show. From my experiences in live performance I’d say the owner bears the final responsibility, but the nature of the nightclub/touring show may be different enough from the theatre/performing troop relationship that responsibility falls differently in this case. Maybe I’m just a Nazi about any stage that is my responsibility and I’m wrong to expect others to be the same way.

minty, start a thread! There is a great place to eat, called Celebration, right down the street from the Inwood. That’s where we had a dopefest last year around this time. I’m sure SOME of our DFW dopers are into Kubrick. I like Dr. Strangelove myself, but I’ll have to clear it with the wife(we’ve gone out quite a few times this month already and our entertainment budget has to encompass babysitters for four little ones) but I’ll keep it in mind. She may have no interest in the film whatsoever and I’ll just come solo.

Enjoy,
Steven

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And that is why when I get my certification in The Future, I’ll only be getting it for outdoor venues. Fireworks and pyrotechnics are too dangerous to use indoors, IMHO.

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DFW Stanley Kubrick Appreciation Society and Doper Gathering

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See, this is why we should teach our children to play with fireworks.

Eats_Crayons – here’s a question for you: Wouldn’t even people with the proverbial Og-Fire-Starter skills have gotten the fuck out of there at first sign of pyrotechnics in a enclosed, un-sprinkler-laden, packed basement?

Hell, I get nervous when I’m at a party and I see curtains and candles in the same room – but not these hapless weak rock fans. No, they sit around wondering whether the burgeoning flames, amongst the packed crowds are part of the Great White experience. Maybe we need a new recreational drug which gives users a mild high euphoria and increased levels of common sense?

As for feeling bad about life’s iniquities, I save my tears for the victims of Senegalese ferry disasters, where poverty and civil war removes any rules, regulations, alternatives, engineers, and expensive safety designs – all of which were available in Rhode Island except for the wisdom to use them.

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Ace, does it ever occur to you that people at a nightclub might have been a trifle intoxicated? I don’t know about righteous people like yourself, but I drink when I go into bars & night clubs.

Hell, I’ve seen nights where I would have been so stoned and drunk that I would have applauded a fire, at least until I realized what it was. In which case, I probably would have been dead.

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My only trouble with this sentiment is that people in the developed world have grown so complacent that they don’t have the sense to not set off pyrotechnics in a small, crowded room or to leave a burning building because they take the safety rules for granted.

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You’re blaming the victims??

Wow. Just wow.

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As I was watching Jack Russell being interviewed Friday morning live on CNN, I had the uneasy feeling that he was enjoying all the attention he was getting, even as he spoke about his missing guitar player (why wasn’t he trying to see if he was at an area hospital?)

And the CNN interviewer asked what was possibly the most idiotic question I have ever heard (no, not the one earlier in this post about whether this was the end of the band), she asked if Jack Russell felt any guilt as a survivor, as survivors often experience after surviving a tragedy where many others die.

It fucking happened less than 12 hours earlier! He was probably glad he made it out and was still running on adreneline, you dumb ass. That guilt kicks in weeks or months later when the reality sets in. Unbelievable. Why didn’t she ask him his favorite color too?

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“Og make fire!” and I am referring to whatever roadie, or stage hand decided that “pyro is cool!” and safety never even enters his (or her) big, meaty head.

They are the same kind of guys who frighten the neighbours with the flames of their barbecue and who always manage to have a supply of illegal fireworks that they will set off at a KOA campsite, risking a forest fire and countles lives.

They refuse to believe they are dangerous because they are packaged as “entertainment.” They do not think ahead. They are oblivious. They think they’ll get a bright flash from their big flash toy and it will shock and amaze – “haw, haw, haw, ain’t it cool!” They see it a “neat toy”, not as “dangerous explosive.”

As for the audience:
a different thread talked about people who were injured in a radio promotion stunt because they sat on blocks of dry-ice :eek: . It’s not so much stupidity, as it is the assumption that the event is a controlled one. If people see pyro effects, they assume that “someone” knows what’s going on and that everything is safe. It’s all about providing a good time in a predictable safe environment, right?

If someone had stepped out with a fire extinguisher and put out the flames, some people would be talking about what a cool close call it was. Think Jimmi Hendrix burning his guitar with lighter fluid… that was “cool” not “irresponsible and stupid.”

Audiences assume, it’s part of the show, until there it becomes explicitly clear that it is not. It’s one part fatih in the event producers, two parts denial. Bad things don’t happen when you are having fun, right?

Secondly, unless you are up front, you may not physically be able to see what is going on (in case you’re thinking of the club patrons who were cheering the flames before they realize what was going on). I’m pretty short and in a big crowd, I might have been aware of the sparks, but not necessarily aware that the flames were not pyro. I simply wouldn’t have been able to see it.

(I also get twichy if I see too many candles and fabric at a party.)

76

I’d be reeeeeeeal interested to see if there was even a written contract. At a small club like that, there may not even have been one. And like you said, if you didn’t document it, you didn’t do it.

I was talking to my husband about this, and he said that if the club owner had not been aware that pyrotechnics were going to be used, he would have also been perfectly justified in walking up to the stage once the pyrotechnics started, and simply pulling the plug on the band and tossing them out. Good point, I thought, but I also pointed out to him that there really wasn’t time. My husband also made another interesting point, in that it’s entirely possible that the band actually really did think that it was okay for them to use pyrotechnics, as they probably weren’t the ones doing the negotiating. Their management may have simply told them “oh yeah, it’s okay,” without it actually being okay. So the band gets there, sets up their stuff, and starts the show without ever questioning. That’s not to say that the band members are completely innocent here–any one of them could have looked around and exercised a bit of common sense, and questioned what their management had told them.

I’m still leaning towards the band’s management catching the brunt of the blame, though.

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Just saw the one of the owners of the bar give a statement in which he seemed to be weeping uncontrollably.

Touching, except he had no tears and no runny nose. Reminded me a lot of Susan Smith.

This is pure spin control.

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runway lighting typically only works if you have a sort of auditorium seating arrangement. For a big open club it wouldn’t really work.

79

Wow. When I was in high school, we frequently had to have people smoking on stage. In fact, I had to light and smoke a cigarette onstage once, which sucked since I don’t smoke.

I guess it was probably illegal :eek:

80

Sure, stone yourself comatose, but don’t think that somehow makes you less responsible for your actions, barring someone somehow lacing your hydroponic B.C. shipment.

I didn’t see many people even drinking on the video – no doubt they couldn’t get to the bar, seeing as how the place was entirely packed. Maybe, even, it was as Eats_Crayons said, they didn’t move for about 30 seconds because they thought the fire and smoke conditions billowing on the ceiling was all part of the show – but I don’t buy that assumption as a reasonable one:

Do any of you cede responsibility for your safety at an event just because someone somewhere signed a contract saying that it was as safe as they could make it? I sure didn’t assume Woodstock II would be all peace and Birkenstocks, and I sure wouldn’t have stayed around in that basement death-trap…

Was there a serious failure by the bar in designing a concert venue where a spilled midori sour and a cigarette would’ve burned the place down in 3 minutes? Hell, yes. Should someone on the band said “hey, maybe indoor fireworks that reach the ceiling, maybe we could, I dunno, test to see if it’ll work in concert? Check to see if they have sprinklers?” Yes. Fucking yes, of course!

But that the venue operators have a legal liability to make conditions safe ain’t shit when we’re talking about whether I live or die in an optional entertainment performance. It wasn’t like they were on taking a dangerous ferry in a land where that was the best of bad alternatives! Nobody had a gun to anyone’s head that I saw, and from the video footage, the establishment was dangerously overcrowded to the point that I would have left already, and I ain’t got all that much common sense.

Let’s face it – that place was already a death-trap, fire or no, to the point that someone with a bottle of mace and a chip on his shoulder could’ve resulted in a dozen trampling fatalities without the aid of egg-cartons or things that shoot sparks. This particular incident stemmed from the fatal lack of expertise and common sense by the owner and the band, and their brilliant combination of sticking flaming things around flammable objects and copious accelerants, but the people attending didn’t show common sense by sticking around when A)It got way too crowded or B)When the fireworks went off.

Titling that opinion “blaming the victims,” Green_Bean, with all the perp-ignoring implications, is a poor reading of what I’ve posted. You could easier make the opposite statement: that I was “blaming the managment,” or “blaming the fire code safety inspector,” in the sense that all statements are partially true, or better yet, you could make an accurate statement drawn from my posting: “Everyone here has some culpability” – legally it’ll be the club, but from a common sense standpoint I wouldn’t say anyone gets passing marks.