CRANSTON -- As the cost of and uncertainty over the state's tough new fire laws sink in, Rhode Island restaurant owners are angry that they cannot get clear answers from state fire-safety officials.
That was the message yesterday as more than 100 restaurant and hotel owners met at the headquarters of the Rhode Island Hospitality and Tourism Association to vent at state fire officials and express their frustration at trying to comply with the strict new codes approved by the General Assembly in the aftermath of the Feb. 20 Station nightclub fire, which claimed 100 lives.
"How can you correct something that's wrong if you don't know what's wrong and nobody can tell you," said Keith Papa, the third generation of his family to run the Greenwood Inn in Warwick.
Under questioning from restaurateurs, Irving J. Owen, the state fire marshall, acknowledged that he did not have answers as to precisely what the new code will require or when local fire inspectors will be properly trained to put it into effect.
"I can't give you a timetable, we're not that far ahead at this point," said Owen.
In an interview, Owen said it "will take a few more weeks or months" before he can give accurate information.
And the fine print of the new code won't be clear until the state's Fire Safety Code Board of Appeal & Review, a 12-member state board, adopts rules based on the new law.
Many restaurant owners are not waiting for state fire officials to get their act together. Rather, they are hiring engineers and consultants and trying to figure out how much it will cost to install such items as sprinklers, new exit doors, and floor-level exit signs.
Brothers Steve and David Lombardi run Lombardi's 1025 Club, the popular Johnston banquet room that has seen many a garter tossed and retiree toasted. They estimate that adding sprinklers and other fire-safety devices will cost between $150,000 and $200,000 for their 30,000-square-foot location.
The Lombardis say they have gathered estimates of between $3 and $5 per square foot for sprinklers.
Cost is not their only concern; they worry about business interruptions while the work is being done. "How do you rip up your whole place and try to make a living," said Steve Lombardi. "You have a bride come in, she's not going to want to see an open ceiling."
The Station club in West Warwick had no sprinklers to put out the fire when the rock band Great White's fireworks ignited flammable packing foam used as soundproofing during the Feb. 20 concert. The new law reclassifies nightclubs as "special amusement buildings," a designation that requires a number of new safety features, including sprinklers.
Experts have said the new code will probably require more restaurants to install other "active" fire protection, such as fire alarms, to older buildings.
The owners also want to make sure that communities enforce the law evenly, which Owen said he will do once he gets around to training the 220 inspectors who work in the state's 39 communities.
Glenn Chelo, vice president of the nine-restaurant Chelo's chain, says "we want to do everything we can" to ensure customer safety. Chelo's has restaurants from South Kingstown to Woonsocket and Chelo says he worries about the new code being enforced in one manner in Cranston and another in neighboring Warwick.
"We want to do the right thing," said Chelo. "But they [inspectors] have to do the right thing."
Others complained that the Feb. 20, 2004, compliance date -- the one-year anniversary of the fire -- was chosen more for political grandstanding at the State House than reason.
Liquor licenses expire in December and many local inspectors examine restaurants then. "What you are talking about is living under one code until December 31 and then having to live with a new code in February," said Josh Miller, owner of Trinity Brew House and the Hot Club, both in Providence.
"What these legislators did was set up a symbolic date, not a real date," said Papa, of the Greenwood Inn.
Kaushik Maisuria, owner of the Sand Dollar Inn, a Westerly motel near Misquamicut Beach, said he wonders if state officials have considered how effective some of the changes will be in preventing fire deaths and injuries.
"I have a coffee shop open from 8 to 10 in the morning," said Maisuria, who doesn't serve alcohol. "There are never more than five people in there at one time. How effective are all these new rules going to be?"
Rural restaurants could face the highest costs if they do not have enough water pressure, said Mark Hayward, Rhode Island director for the U.S. Small Business Administration. Lack of such pressure could force a restaurant owner to build expensive water holding tanks or drill a new well, said Hayward.
On the bright side, Hayward said, are commitments from most of the state's larger banks to offer low-interest loans to restaurant owners who make fire-safety renovations. Among those institutions are Citizens Bank, Fleet Bank, The Washington Trust Company, Sovereign Bank, Bank Rhode Island, Home Loan & Investment Bank, First Federal Savings Bank and other lenders working in cooperation with the Small Business Administration.
"What a great way for the state to do business," said Joseph Larisa, a lawyer who represents restaurant owners and a former top aide to ex-Governor Lincoln C. Almond. "They have no answers to these questions and no timetable for answering them."
