Woman Trapped in Building : Locked Doors Present Safety Factor

Hundreds of local buildings, from shopping malls to office towers, have “potentially serious” fire-safety problems even though they meet the city’s building code, according to a top-ranking city official.

Tim Taylor, chief of the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety’s building bureau, says a code exception that allows many building owners to lock all their emergency exit doors after normal business hours should be changed to require that at least one exit be unlocked 24 hours a day.

“The (code) exception allows certain kinds of buildings to be locked up, even when people are still inside,” Taylor said. “It scares me. . . . I can shut down buildings that don’t meet the codes, but (because of the exception) these buildings meet all the codes.”

Taylor made his comments in response to a Times inquiry about a woman who said she was trapped after business hours in City Hall East.

As a result of the inquiry, Taylor and Assistant Fire Chief Jim Young said they would likely begin using their discretionary authority to allow the exception only in new commercial buildings housing a single tenant with fewer than 50 occupants.

However, Taylor said, he does not expect to force owners of existing properties using the exception to begin leaving at least one door unlocked at all times. “If a building was checked and approved, it wouldn’t be fair” to revoke its exception unless the City Council demanded it, he said.

The city’s building code requires that all exit doors be “openable” from the inside without the use of a key. But, like codes in many other cities, it grants an exception to “Group B” buildings--office complexes, shopping centers and the like--which allows their doors to be locked after business hours are over.

Taylor said he did not know how many buildings are in the Group B category, but said they probably number “in the hundreds.”

“Locking up a building is OK if it’s just a tiny retail shop and you can tell whether there’s anybody left in the store just by looking across the room,” he said. “But if it’s a high-rise or a shopping center, there’s no way that a security guard who’s locking up all the doors could possibly know whether everybody is out of the building.”

As a result, people who are working past normal business hours could find themselves locked in overnight.

Unable to Escape

Worse, Taylor said, late-night workers or visitors might be unable to escape if a fire broke out during non-business hours.

Taylor thinks the code should be changed to require owners of large commercial buildings to keep at least one exit unlocked 24 hours a day.

Taylor’s comments come amid renewed concern over the fire safety of large buildings throughout the city. The City Council last month enacted a law requiring owners of some pre-1974 commercial buildings to install sprinkler systems, following a May 4 fire at the First Interstate Bank Building that killed one person and injured 40 others.

State law already requires sprinklers in buildings constructed since 1974.

Stresses Sprinklers

Taylor said the need to have at least one unlocked door leading to the outside isn’t as important as having fire sprinklers, which is another reason why he won’t revoke existing exceptions. “If you have fire sprinklers in a building, the fire should be put out quickly and you might not even need to leave,” he said.

“Having (unlocked) doors leading outside is important, but not as important as having a sprinkler system.”

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, chairman of the council’s Building and Safety Committee, said he was unaware of concerns about potential safety hazards created by the code exception that allows doors to be locked after business hours.

Safety Factors Cited

“I’ll look into it,” Bernardi said. “But right now, I have to assume that solving any problems is a matter of better internal management (between building owners and occupants). If somebody is in a building after hours, they should make sure they have a key, or let the security service know that they’re in there.”

Bernardi admits that it may be unsafe to lock all of a building’s exits when workers or visitors may still be inside. “But it’s unsafe not to lock them in today’s climate,” he said.

Jan Hunsinger, who was working as a secretary when she found herself locked in City Hall East on Christmas Eve in 1984, says no building owner should be allowed to lock people in--even if doing so is legal.

All doors on her level had been locked at 1 p.m. because of the holiday season, Hunsinger said, and there were no stairways. After rattling the doors in an unsuccessful attempt to summon security guards, she broke a glass panel in an effort to attract help.

Billed by City

She later learned that she could have reached an unlocked exit by taking an elevator to a different floor. A few days after the incident, the city sent her a $290-repair bill for the broken panel.

Hunsinger, now a USC student, refused to pay and took the matter to court. Although she lost her first court battle, she recently won on appeal.

“As far as I knew, I was stuck in the building, and there was no way out,” she said. “Thank God there wasn’t a fire, or I would have been trapped.

“My only alternative would have been to get in an elevator and hope I could find an unlocked door on a different floor,” she said. “Getting into an elevator is the last thing you’re supposed to do when there’s a fire.”