The Region - News from June 18, 1987

The owner of a Hollywood apartment building damaged in an arson fire may be criminally liable for failing to hook up emergency sprinklers in the complex, city officials said. Domingo Sauceda, a senior inspector for the Building and Safety Department, said Daniel Wiener, owner of the Canterbury Apartments on Cherokee Avenue, violated the so-called Dorothy Mae ordinance, named after the apartment building where 25 people died in a 1982 fire, in failing to connect the fire control system. No one was injured in the weekend blaze, but nearly 400 residents were evacuated and fire damage was estimated at $400,000. Sauceda explained that in early 1986, after a safety inspection, Wiener of Newport Beach was given a year to install sprinklers, fire doors that close automatically to halt the spread of flames and smoke detectors. Most of that work, he said, was completed, but the sprinklers were not hooked to a water supply main. The matter is now before the city attorney.