UNDER FIRE : Does L.A.’s Fire Department Have It In for Alternative Clubs?

Two incidents resulting from the Los Angeles Fire Department’s on-going campaign against overcrowding in clubs and restaurants:

The crowd in a Hollywood club presses eagerly toward the stage as a highly touted East Coast rock band kicks into its opening song. In the middle of the third song, the house lights go up and the PA system shuts down. After an announcement that the show is over, the audience sullenly shuffles toward the exits, leaving a sour trail of deflated expectations in its wake.

A couple hungrily digs into their meal in a crowded dining room. It’s a hip, happening restaurant bubbling with activity. Suddenly, the meal is interrupted as firemen in full firefighting gear enter the room and take up positions to close off the exits.

After collecting a refund and apologies from the manager, the couple file through the door past a fire official clicking away on a mechanical counter. Outside they pass by two police squad cars and a hook-and-ladder fire truck. They look at each other and make a mental note to try another place next time.

Do city fire marshals have it in for alternative clubs and restaurants? Are they expressly trying to make the city’s nightlife contingent hang up their dancing shoes?

That long-running perception within the city’s vanguard art and music community has heightened with a recent series of one-night enforced closures. One result may be fewer arenas for cutting-edge performers to hone their skills because the small-scale promoters who usually stage those kinds of events may not have a bankroll fat enough to meet city safety standards and survive financially.

“It’s a no-win situation, “ said Ellen Vinitsky, a former booker at Al’s Bar, an alternative venue in the downtown loft district that has been repeatedly cited for overcrowding. “The laws are written incredibly broadly so it’s a matter of interpretation.

“They (the marshals) are trying to push their policy and people are trying to make a living and satiate an audience’s wants and needs,” Vinitsky said. “It’s ironic because the people who lose all the way around is the audience, whom the clubs and fire department are supposedly serving.”

Raymond Olsen, the commander of the Fire Department’s Public Safety Division, doesn’t think anyone is losing as long as they’re walking out of public places alive.

“When you talk about public safety, what is going to prevail is public safety,” Chief Olsen said. “The code is a minimum code for public safety and we’d like to see things better than that.

“Los Angeles has always had a better application and enforcement in fire prevention and building codes than most jurisdictions . . . we enforce what we put down,” the chief said.

The area of enforcement for the fire department’s Public Assemblage Unit, the branch responsible for regulating the capacity of public places, extends across the city to more than 2,000 places, according to Chief Olsen’s estimate. It ranges from Dodger Stadium to Hollywood’s Firefly bar. It takes in restaurants like the West Beach Cafe and Tony Bill’s 72 West Market St. in Venice to Tom Bergin’s in the Wilshire District and Cocola’s downtown. Clubs range from Vertigo and Stock Exchange to the alternative scenes at the Cathouse in Hollywood, Scream in Echo Park and gay bars in Silver Lake. Live music venues from Hollywood’s Club Lingerie and the Anti-Club to Sasch in Studio City, and performance/poetry/music spaces like Al’s Bar or Be-Bop Records in Reseda can all be subjected to inspection.

A Calendar random survey of more than two dozen clubs and restaurants revealed no conclusive pattern of what some have called fire department “harassment.” But there were widespread complaints about inconsistency in enforcement.

The determining element seemed to be whatever level of personal rapport an owner developed with the fire marshals, many owners said. Keeping the marshals appraised of plans in advance and delivering on what’s promised usually resulted in a strictly enforced but equitable relationship, they said. But get on the marshals’ bad side by trying to put one over on them or get tabbed as a chronic violator and the club owner could be in deep trouble.

The long-running and widely reported battles with the Red Onions (Wilshire District and Woodland Hills) and Chippendale’s about overcrowding seem to rule out any undue targeting by the fire department of alternative arts venues. But the consensus of the survey was that enforcement intensifies near the downtown area--precisely the portion of the city where most alternative art performers and venues are concentrated.

Few club and restaurant operators disputed the marshal’s commitment to their primary goal--ensuring public safety--and virtually all dismissed any suggestion of pay-offs to curry favorable treatment.

However, many only agreed to be interviewed off the record and nearly all expressed deep concern that their comments might come back to haunt them. The fear was that speaking up could mean being singled out for repeat visits by fire marshals who “are fully capable of making your life miserable,” as one source put it.

Chief Olsen attributed this feeling that particular groups may be singled out to media portrayals that “advertise the fact that something is going on.” He also said rival clubs or restaurants that might anonymously phone in complaints to the Fire Department in order to harass their competitors could have heightened the fire marshals’ presence in the alternative art and music community. Several club owners agreed. (The fire department is legally bound to respond to any complaint it receives, anonymous or not.)

The analogy most often used by owners to indicate the fire marshal’s favoritism towards more mainstream entertainment--”You’ll never see them at Spago’s on Academy Award night”--foundered over a simple question of jurisdiction. That A-list restaurant is located in West Hollywood and West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena and the other municipalities in the Greater Los Angeles area have their own, generally less stringent regulatory codes.

So geography is destiny here--Sunset Strip music landmarks like the Roxy and Whisky as well as such show-biz meeting grounds as Le Dome and the Palm are subject to occupancy limits governed by “lighter” codes.

What specific gripes did the alternative club and restaurant owners surveyed have?

Predictably, there was grumbling about the low occupancy load (legal capacity) granted to venues, although Olsen characterized the department as “liberal and lenient in our interpretation of the code.” That figure is computed according to the number of fire exits, access to those exits and a formula that requires at least 7 square feet per person for a dance floor area and 15 when tables and chairs are involved.

Any alterations of floor plan that must be filed with the city prompts a review. The dress-to-impress Vertigo dance club downtown recently added a bar and had more than 100 people subtracted from its legal occupancy load.

But most of the complaints centered around the broad discretionary latitude given the individual marshals. Many instances were cited of marshals giving instructions that directly contradicted the recommendations previously made by another one.

“There is no guarantee the next inspector--the next week, the next night or even later that night--might not view a situation from a different perspective,” said Kurt Fisher of Club Lingerie. “One inspector was very tough on us one night and made me run a doorman up and down the aisle every five minutes to make sure it was clear.

“The next man came in about six months later and I said, ‘I’ll get a man to open that aisle for you right away,’ and he said (it’s) not necessary. The rules change.”

Responded Olsen: “Most inspectors say what you need to do is submit a set of plans for approval and here are the guidelines. Each inspector’s background and expertise of saying how you can modify the room or building may vary but, in most cases, they’re not saying this is what you have to do.”

But several owners said those helpful hints carried more weight than a mere suggestion. They felt that if they didn’t follow the marshal’s instructions, they wouldn’t be allowed to operate.

Two sources who requested anonymity recounted episodes in which marshals arbitrarily dropped the legal capacity of a room on the spot, although Olsen said that was against department policy. And two others, who also wished to remain nameless, said that marshals, after determining the crowd was over the legal capacity, allowed them to reopen at their legal occupancy limit, despite an official policy that mandates closure for the remainder of the business day.

Another complaint the owners had was the bureaucratic entanglements that resulted when they attempted to bring a club or restaurant up to code. Many owners complained they never knew where they stood between the half-dozen agencies involved with renovation work and cited frequent instances where meeting one agency’s requirements put them in violation of another’s regulations.

Jean-Pierre Boccara, who ran the now-defunct Lhasa Club in Hollywood, recounted one incident where an inspector suddenly demanded that Boccara change the door locks . . . even though Boccara had checked on the proper kind with authorities when he installed them five years before. But Boccara went ahead and changed the locks--only to have the next inspector to visit the Lhasa tell him that he had the wrong door locks and would have to change them.

The code complications are among the reasons why so many independently promoted clubs gravitate towards locations like the Park Plaza Hotel at MacArthur Park and Osko’s on La Cienega Blvd. Those buildings are old enough to be protected by “grandfather clauses” that exempt them from current fire and safety code provisions. Bringing a building up to code today can easily cost as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars, a figure well beyond the bankroll of most small club operators trying to present alternative art or entertainment.

That can squeeze out smaller entrepreneurs like Boccara, who converted a 3,000-square-foot warehouse on Santa Monica Boulevard into the Lhasa and offered a modern cabaret mixture of performance art, music, poetry readings and video screenings. Boccara shut down the club last year after failing to get a beer and wine permit.

“I spent $15,000 just to make the Lhasa Club up to code and on lawyers fees and waiting and waiting and waiting because it’s a maze of codes and people,” he said. “I respect the rules that people should be safe but it’s not like the rules are clear and you know exactly what to expect.”

Tommy Chin opened the Sasch club in Studio City eight years ago and said he experienced few difficulties with any regulatory agencies until two years ago. But now he’s afraid he may have to shut down the club because of the financial drain resulting from a steady stream of safety repairs demanded by fire marshals. And he’s wondering why the inoperative kitchen stove and front-door security set-up that were no problem when he opened are suddenly bones of contention.

“There’s never an end to it--that is the worst thing,” said Chin, who estimated he had lost 25% of his business in the last two years. “You finish this, they’ll find something else. We do everything they ask us to do but it’s non-stop.”

Arbitrariness may figure as one of the recurring complaints of fire marshal policy but there’s nothing half-hearted about the Fire Department’s ultimate policy for enforcing code requirements--closing the place down for the day.

Many felt the mandatory closure punishment, a policy adopted several years ago to make enforcement more uniform, is too Draconian. Cocola’s restaurant downtown had gotten the kind of start most fledgling restaurants dream of--quick popularity, favorable press notices and a loyal clientele since it opened eight months ago. But fire marshals Robert Willcox and Henry Beltran shut it down for overcrowding on Feb. 20 in the middle of a busy Saturday night, even though the restaurant didn’t have an established legal capacity at the time.

(Olsen said he had reviewed the Cocola’s case and that the restaurant lacked valid permits and had failed to arrange an inspection to establish its occupancy load. Appraised of Olsen’s comments, Cocola’s co-owner Wendy Davis maintained their permits were in order and their understanding was that a fire marshal would return to set its legal capacity on Feb. 16--the deadline for completing a list of safety renovations set by another inspector during a visit earlier that month. But Ted Goldstein of the City Attorney’s office said he knew of no instance where a restaurant could operate legally before it received its occupancy load.)

The 80-person limit, including staff, established by Willcox and Beltran the night the restaurant was closed could jeopardize its future. “The 80 limit could drive us out of business--without question,” said Davis. “I don’t know if they’ve taken that into consideration but I have and if we’re stuck at 80, we’re in trouble.”

Another critic was Mike Mandekic, owner of Tom Bergin’s, an Irish pub/restaurant in the mid-Wilshire District that was closed down on St. Patrick’s Day by fire marshal Andy Valencia. It’s tough to confuse a 50-year-old watering hole like Bergin’s, or its clientele, with the arts and music crowd who have most frequently complained about fire marshal conduct.

“Years ago, the Fire Department would come by and say, ‘St. Patrick’s Day is coming up so watch your door,”’ said Mandekic, who said his most recent fire safety inspection was two years ago and last occupancy check was five years ago. “If you’re making a mistake and they tell you, ‘You’re wrong and if you do it one more time, we’ll close you up’--anybody can listen to that. But when they came down as hard as they did on me, I do not understand it.”

Mandekic wasn’t the only puzzled party at Tom Bergin’s on St. Patrick’s Day. In a letter made available to The Times, a San Jose lawyer (and former prosecutor and judge) Gerald Hansen, who was dining there with his family that night, characterized the shutdown this way: “It is my mature opinion that what I witnessed was the grossest type of unconstitutional conduct imaginable.”

Added Mandekic, who admitted that the restaurant/pub was over the legal limit: “It was a very large financial setback. They closed me down at 7 in the evening so I had 5 more hours of the biggest business we ever do. I felt sorry for my employees because there are tips involved and I had to give a ton of corned beef and Irish stew away because it was going to go bad in the next couple of days.”

Said Olsen of the widespread feeling that Tom Bergin’s and Molly Malone’s, a second pub in the neighborhood that was shut down that night, were specifically targeted: “If the Irish bars end up being overcrowded when you drive down the street and it’s your job to handle that, it’s not that anybody gets singled out. You’re waving a sore thumb in somebody’s face who goes in and does the enforcement they’re required to do by law.”

Vertigo owner Jim Kolachis claimed he lost $20,000 in revenues over a four-week period following each of his two closures due to patrons’ reluctance to return in the ensuing weeks. Kolachis, who said he was 50 and 70 people over his occupancy limit of slightly more than 1,000 at the time, felt a proportional punishment system would be more just.

“It would be nice to regulate the fine based on the seriousness of the crime, which it seems to be in every situation other than the fire department,” said Kolachis. “At those standards of 15 feet and 7 feet, places aren’t busy at their maximum capacities.

“I think there should be some lenience for a 10% over (your posted limit) on occasion. Maybe 10% over gets you this fine, 25% over gets you shut down or 50% over gets you shut down for three days.”

For live music establishments the financial after-effects of reduced capacity can be long-term. The Club Lingerie’s four-year bout with fire marshals--over overcrowding and the safety renovations needed to make the club eligible for a larger capacity--continues to affect its ability to do business.

“It prefaces every conversation with a road act’s agent, manager or representative: What’s your occupancy now?” said Fisher. “If they have an album happening and a buzz going, and they can only do 250 paid admissions at the Lingerie versus 350 at the Palomino, we’re shut out of the market. There’s no way you can out-bid a venue of similar size but greater capacity.”