Digital Extra: The Station Fire

10:58 AM EST on Thursday, February 19, 2004

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

For three owners of Providence-area live-music venues closed in the wake of The Station fire, it's been a difficult, and, in some cases, expensive year. The shutdowns lasted from a few days to a few months; the cost of renovation and lost business ranged from negligible to six figures. But in the end, none have hard feelings, all have safe establishments, and all say that's the most important thing.

Two nights after the fire, a speaker overheated in Bovi's Tavern, 287 Taunton Ave., East Providence, producing some smoke. While there were no flames, and the speaker was nonetheless blasted with a fire extinguisher, understandably nervous patrons left the club, and those who left by the back door, behind the stage, found they were walking into an enclosed courtyard, with no access to the street.

Bovi's was closed two days after that.

According to owner John Bovi, the courtyard had been fenced in by a neighbor 12 or 13 years ago.

Bovi says he was shut down for 12 days, until he could get an injunction to open the fence while working on a permanent exit by cutting a new side door out of the club. For several months after he reopened, he made sure that the bands at his club announced the presence of the new exit.

"It was a tough road coming back, because a lot of people were antsy coming into places," Bovi says. "And then January and February are tough because of the weather. So it hasn't been all that great. I think everybody'll survive, but when something drastic like that happens, it takes everyone a while to regroup and go back to doing what they were doing."

The exit cost $15,000. Next up, Bovi says, is a fire alarm system, which will cost $6,000 to $7,000. (Until now, the grandfather clause in the regulations exempted the club, which Bovi's father opened in 1947.) He estimates that the entire set of fire-safety renovations will cost him $30,000.

But he's not complaining. "It's a brick building; it's not going to go up in five seconds. But, you know, anything can happen. . . .

"My kids work here too; I'll do whatever it takes."

For CAV, at 14 Imperial Place, Providence, the shutdown was brief -- only three days. But according to owner Sylvia Moubayed, the effects were long-lasting.

Moubayed says that the shutdown was mostly over a misunderstanding. Rugs and kilims are everywhere in CAV, including, a year ago, hanging from the walls and ceiling. Because they are one-of-a-kind works, she says, they had no factory fire-safety labels on them, and they were ordered removed.

"But when Deputy Fire Marshal George Farrell came, they found that the kilims we have are made of wool, and that is not combustible. Wool is a very fire-resistant material."

In the end, Moubayed says, the only changes ordered were to take down the Christmas lights that had long decorated the restaurant, and to put the candles on the tables in glass cylinders.

But while media attention had focused on CAV's closing, its reopening was largely ignored.

"Literally, for months, people thought we were closed. And when it came the party season, people would [look in] and say 'Are you open?' even though we had only been closed for three days. . . . But we survived it, and we were all back to par by November."

The irony, Moubayed says, is that music is a small part of what CAV is about. "I'm open 100 hours a week, and I have music three and a half hours a week. So I'm not a club at all."

No hard feelings, though.

"Everybody was anxious because of the tragedy, and it happened. Nobody's fault. One of those things."

The Green Room at Snooker's was closed the longest -- not because there was so much to do, but because of the layers of bureaucracy involved.

The Green Room is a room off the pool hall on Clifford Street in Providence. According to owner Steve Goulding, Snooker's has multiple exits. But shortly after The Station fire, the Green Room was ruled "too concentrated" a space, Goulding says. It needed a second exit all its own.

The construction took three weeks, but the club was shut down for nearly five months.

"The biggest thing was the time it took to do it. And it was nobody's fault." Indeed, Goulding has nothing but praise for the city and state officials he dealt with.

And there were plenty of them.

Goulding had to meet with and get approval from the fire marshal, the landlord, the Rhode Island Historical Society (because the stairs from the second-floor club can be seen from the street), the building inspector, the city fire inspector and the state Fire Board.

As the weeks dragged into months, Goulding estimates, the total construction costs were $30,000, and the closure cost him $100,000 in business. "It's been an expensive year," he says.

Goulding says his sanity was saved by his previous experiences. He was an architectural designer before entering the club business, he says, and so he was prepared for delays and layers of approvals. "I've been in and out of that office dozens of times, so I knew what to expect. It's a fact of life. . . ."

Since reopening in mid-July, the crowds have been coming back, he says.

"I think that since we reopened, we've probably had stronger crowds than we did before we closed. Hopefully, that's a testament to the club being new and safe and up to code, and people feeling safe about it."

CORRECTION: An earlier headline on this report incorrectly implied the number of area clubs brought up to code since The Station fire.