Garment District Blaze Fans Safety Fears

A day after a fierce blaze hit a 76-year-old high-rise in the downtown garment district, a key Los Angeles Fire Department official said more inspectors are needed to enforce fire safety codes, and some sewing shop operators conceded that their quest for profits in the highly competitive trade sometimes overshadows concern for worker safety.

At least 40 people were injured when a fire broke out in the RK Building in the 700 block of South Los Angeles Street early Tuesday afternoon. Sixteen workers were plucked from the rooftop by rescue helicopters as the top floors were engulfed by smoke from a blaze, authorities said.

On Wednesday, Fire Department investigators said the cause of the fire, which apparently started in a small, sixth-floor storage room crammed with rayon material used to produce fake mink fur, is still under investigation.

But in the aftermath of the biggest downtown high-rise blaze since the fire that crippled the 62-story First Interstate Bank building last year, the head of the city’s high-rise inspection unit said he lacks the manpower to adequately enforce fire safety codes in the garment district or elsewhere in Los Angeles.

“We need more staffing,” said Fire Capt. Hugh Tucker, commander of the department’s high-rise inspection unit. “One of my biggest duties is to fight for more personnel. I beat my drum to the fire marshal constantly.

“When a tragedy like this strikes, it makes my job easier--to sell the need for fire prevention,” he said.

Tucker said the Fire Department has only 11 inspectors to oversee code compliance in 678 high-rises throughout Los Angeles. A widely lauded ordinance adopted last year will require automatic sprinkler systems in 386 of the buildings, but only two investigators are assigned to oversee that program, he said.

Tucker said 76 of the buildings are still awaiting initial inspection by investigators.

The RK Building that burned Tuesday is one of the buildings that will be required to install a sprinkler system, fire officials said. But while it had already undergone the initial inspection, owner George Hassid had several months to go before he was required to install it.

However, Fire Department safety records show that the RK building had been found out of compliance with several other parts of the fire safety code in August, 1988, and inspectors had not returned to follow up on the violations since October, 1988.

City law requires that high-rise buildings be inspected once every 12 months.

Some of those violations included stairwell doors being improperly tied open, something fire inspectors say would have allowed smoke and fire to spread quickly through the building, and fire exit signs that were not properly posted.

Tucker said a follow-up visit to the October, 1988, inspection had been planned for Wednesday, but the fire inspector assigned to the case is on leave.

Tucker said the problems at the RK Building are not unlike those found at other buildings in the garment district, where aging structures house scores of small companies where thousands of workers toil, many of them Latino and Asian immigrants.

“In addition to this building, there are approximately 25 others that we are immediately concerned with” in the garment district, Deputy Fire Chief Davis Parsons said.

Parsons, who as Tucker’s supervisor has ultimate responsibility for the high-rise inspection unit, said that the department has already received city approval to hire three safety inspectors next year.

Within the boundaries of the garment district--from Hill Street to San Pedro Avenue and from Pico Boulevard to 5th Street--sewing shop operators and workers interviewed on Wednesday said that concern for fire safety often clashes with the business concern for the bottom line.

David Byun, 27, owner of L.A. Sewing, said that when his workers turned off their sewing machines Tuesday to get a better look at flames and smoke pouring from the RK Building, one of his supervisors yelled, “Don’t stop! Don’t stop working!”

“We can’t think about safety when there are bills to pay,” Byun said. “We don’t have fire drills like in school. Well, maybe they could do it at break time.”

Said Vivian Kim, co-owner of Expert Fashion, “Everybody is so busy trying to run the business that they don’t have time to think about safety.”

But not every garment factory operator is cavalier about safety, said John Cho, general manager of the Korean Garment Assn. He said the association includes 400 contractors in the area employing more than 20,000 workers, and there are plans to use the association’s newsletter to “enlighten our members about the problem and make sure their buildings are safe.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, about 100 garment workers returned to the blackened nine-story RK Building to await permission to enter it and retrieve tools, immigration documents and bus passes that they needed to find temporary work elsewhere.

Throughout the garment district’s aging high-rise buildings, workers complained they believed that their employers were not doing enough to ensure their safety in the event of a fire or earthquake.

“We’d like more equipment and emergency planning in order for us to work with peace of mind,” said Leticia Rosas, 29, who works a sewing machine at A&S; Fashions on South Los Angeles Street. “If there is an opportunity, we are going to talk to the boss about it.”

Other workers blamed the city. Elizabeth Gonzalez, a roving quality control inspector who visits at least 10 sewing shops a day in the garment district, said working conditions are “pitiful” throughout the area.

A spokesman for Councilman Richard Alatorre, who is chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said Wednesday that it is the Fire Department’s responsibility to seek more funding if it believes that more manpower is needed.

“It is up to the Fire Department to determine whether this was something that couldn’t have been avoided or a result of violations or, specifically, a problem of not enough inspectors to keep an eye on the buildings,” said Andy Ilves, Alatorre’s press secretary.

Times staff writers Ashley Dunn and Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.