Newport businesses say fire code is too stringent

Efforts are now under way to revise the state fire code in the 2012 legislative session, a move some local businesses hope will provide relief from what they see as excessively stringent standards.
Katie Dyer, managing partner of Cadeaux du Monde, a folk art gallery in Newport, says she faces a bill of at least $10,000 for full compliance, while Federico Santi and John Gacher, owners of The Drawing Room, an antiques shop in Newport, say they need to spend $12,000 to comply. Both businesses are housed in historic homes used for mixed commercial and residential purposes.
In both cases, the business owners say they have been told they need to install fire alarm horns and strobe lights in bathrooms, even those used by private tenants.
Dyer called the code “draconian” and “incredibly over the top. All it’s going to do is put people out of business,” she told Providence Business News, voicing an opinion readily shared by other business owners and advocates.
“It’s unbelievable what they want us to do,” said Gacher, who unlike Dyer has not appealed to the state for a variance. “It’s absurdly stringent.”
Thomas B. Coffey Jr., executive director of the state Fire Safety Code Board of Appeal and Review, said his board is in the process of preparing revisions for submission to the General Assembly in the next legislative session, which begins January 2012. He declined, however, to provide specifics of what those revisions might be – for fear of misleading people, he said – but said that the intent is to “inject common sense” into the code.
The National Fire Protection Association, based in Quincy, Mass., is now updating the national code for 2012, Coffey explained, and the state fire-safety board intends to include some of the new national regulations in its recommended revisions. It’s too early to say if there will be other changes to Rhode Island law to address concerns raised by Dyer and other local businesses, he said.
The state fire code was overhauled after The Station nightclub fire in West Warwick in 2003, making it one of the toughest in the nation, state officials have said. The requirement for warning lights and alarm horns in bathrooms no doubt stems from the fact that several people at The Station died in the rest rooms.
To bring the Thames Street gift shop of the Newport Restoration Foundation into compliance, Executive Director Pieter Roos said a low-wattage fire alarm system in fine working order had to be pulled out and replaced with a high-wattage system, capable of supporting fire horns, at a cost of $14,000 about four years ago.
For cost reasons, the new system could not be hooked up to an alarm company as the former system was, Roos said, so he questions how much more effective the new system actually is.
“We’re lucky,” Roos said. “We have a big budget, but a lot of small businesses can’t afford that and it will put them out of business.”
Rep. Peter F. Martin, a Newport Democrat working with affected small businesses in his district, said he also fears some enterprises may not survive. “I recognize that we’re trying to save lives, but I’m concerned because we’re definitely killing businesses,” he told PBN recently.
Martin and Dyer called for a moratorium on enforcement of the code until revisions are considered next year.
Coffey, however, does not agree, predicting “other problems” if enforcement is delayed across the board. What if delayed enforcement resulted in “a fire in your building?” he asked.
Dyer has owned and operated Cadeaux du Monde folk art gallery for 24 years, the last 10 years from an historic home on Mary Street built in 1876, used previously as a doctor’s office and a lawyer’s office. Her gallery of 1,200 square feet is on the first floor, with a tenant living upstairs. As recently as 2007, she said, she took steps recommended by the local state fire marshal, including installation of a low-wattage fire alarm connected to an alarm company and installation of a smoke-detector system throughout the building. Now, she said, she’s been told she needs a new fire alarm system, as well as other costly changes, including a central control panel within sight of the front door and an emergency “pull-down” alarm box.
She applied for a variance, testified at an appeal hearing before the state fire-safety board in May and was given six more months to comply. However, she is putting her efforts into getting the law changed because, even if she were allowed a whole year to do so, “I can’t afford” to comply, Dyer said.
In response, Coffey said, the fire-safety board absolved Dyer of the need to install sprinklers, but board members were concerned about her building because the upstairs apartment is occupied and does not have a separate egress from the business. He said Dyer’s mother, listed as the building owner, agreed to a new fire alarm system.
Dyer said other Newport businesses also face expensive renovations to comply with the state code. Representatives of several such businesses recently met in the city to share their concerns. The meeting included representatives of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, with Martin and Jody J. Sullivan, executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce.
The EDC attended the meeting to listen and gather information, said spokeswoman Melissa Chambers. It is too soon to say, she said, if EDC will support revising the fire code.
Sullivan did not immediately return a call seeking comment. •