Yeah, you’re right. Some people don’t want to make waves.
Holy crap!
I was a safety rep for the plant I worked in a few years ago and every year we would have one safety meeting where we would do the fire walk.
I gave the meetings and also I was one people that was the last to be out if there was a fire or an ammonia leak.
You could be fired if a fire door was blocked or bumping an ammonia line.
We had a few false alarms because of steam from cleaning or smoke rooms, we also had a few small fires from the embers from the smokers not being out when they were disposed of.
A few times when the alarms and lights went off we were told to stay where we were and keep working until they called the guard shack and found out if it was a false alarm or not.
Nope, if you were on my floor you were leaving when the alarm went off. Fire me for doing my job, but I would rather have my department out and safe and have to change our clothes on the way back in then have it be a fire and have people die.
I still have issues going in to places and not seeing unsafe conditions. I’m the one straightening out the floor mats so others don’t trip.
The management company is the one who scheduled the fire drill. They had a lackey on hand with the Fire Services rep to help-set-off the alarm and turn it off again. The lackey isn’t the usual guy from the property management, and he very well may not have mentioned anything to his boss.
However, my boss is so mad that he’s going to have a little sit down with property management. The lackey’s also function as security, and part of their jobs is to go around checking to be sure that the emergency exits are kept clear and stuff like that.
There’s different stuff piled in front of those emergency doors now, which suggests they do it regularly. So why doesn’t “security” enforce the building safety rules?
ETA: On a previous fire drill, the exit was clear. It was a different restaurant at that location at time.
Another suggestion, if you’re willing to make the effort, do a Google search for the settlements that were paid to the victims of things like the RI club fire, or any of the cases of large body counts because a business had defeated fire safety features for the purpose of profit.
A number of those settlements are on the order of a million dollars per person killed. Plus punitive fines. If the management company doesn’t care about fire safety for itself, they may well care about the magnitude of fines they could be open to, if they don’t do anything about this.
Yikes. I’ve got more code violations bouncing around in my head right now than you can imagine. In addition to keeping the path of egress clear of obstacles, you also want it to be clear of combustibles! Burning shit in your pathway to safety is counterproductive.
Glad you learned about all of this now, while it can be corrected, and avoid a redux of the MGM Grand. I hope the local FM is receptive to your input and stays on these meatheads until it’s all made right.
Violations like this make me furious. They don’t value peoples lives above storing shit out of sight. Keep up relentlessly on this.
At the theatre that I work for there are two levels of alarm, one that is only heard by the staff, and another that is heard by the public. We are authorized to turn the second alarm off (after notifying security) in the theatre when there is a performance. When the first alarm goes off we call security and they inform us to evacuate or not. If evacuation is necessary then we handle the ushering of the audience. Having a large group of people who are not familiar with the fire routes panicking because of an alarm does no good.
I would think that the restaurant would have a similar practice.
Here’s some RO to go along with your real rage.
There was a fire in a building in Tokyo a couple of years ago. Each floor had it’s own tennents, which were mostly hostess clubs. The main access was a single elevator and then there were two emergency exits for each floor; windows in the front which could be swung out far enough for people to exit, with an emergency chain ladder that could be dropped down; and the back stairs.
The fire broke out on one of the middle floors, and smoke started to fill the building. The elevator stopped, as it’s programed to, so people used the back stairs. Except for the people in the club on the floor immediately above the fire, who couldn’t force open the emergency door, because the club owners were using the space to store beer bottles and other stuff, and they couldn’t open the front windows because the owners had installed a huge sign advertising their store.
Something like 22 people died in that fire. :mad:
Do whatever it takes to get this situation taken care of today, not tomorrow.
It’s dumb shit like that, which results in things like the Hamlet Chicken processing plant fire.
Thanks to you for reporting it. You may have saved lives in the future.
SSG Schwartz
I will never resent fire drills again. This thread is an eye-opener.
Rather than doing a Google search for settlements, find out who is insuring the building and talk to them. They know the magnitude of those fines and you better believe they will care since they are ultimately on the hook for paying them. Also, make a formal written complaint and submit it to the fire marshall, just for documentation.
Swallowed My Cellphone, we’re now most way through the next work week - have you got any updates to offer on this? (And have you checked the fire exit, this week?)
Something similar happened in Chicago a few years back. Six people died in a locked stairwell during a fire in the Loop.
I was working nearby when this happened. I left work for the day, heard lots of sirens, and wandered off in their direction. (Who *doesn’t * check out a fire, right?) Lots of fire and smoke pouring out of the building, lots of firefighters running around. I gawked for awhile. Felt like shit the next day when I found out that while I was watching my free entertainment, people were dying of smoke inhalation a few hundred feet away.
Swallowed my Cellphone, it’s not being a prick or a worrywart or a complainer to take your safety seriously.