Orlando Allows Nightclub to Open Despite Fire Hazard

Sept. 25, 2012
Nearly a year and a half ago, Orlando City Hall allowed Draft Global Beer Lounge to open -- despite a fire hazard -- without final approval from building inspectors.

Nearly a year and a half ago, Orlando City Hall allowed Draft Global Beer Lounge to open -- despite a fire hazard -- without final approval from building inspectors.

The nightclub directly across the street from the Amway Center continues to serves customers even though it never received its final inspection or certificate of occupancy.

It's the same business that has drawn allegations of favoritism after sticking taxpayers with $57,000 in back rent.

Records show inspectors repeatedly refused to approve the business's final inspection because of serious fire-safety problems. One of the problems was a prohibited flammable foam on a wall -- the same problem that contributed to a 2003 fire at a Rhode Island nightclub that killed 100 people.

Instead, the city's top building official issued a 30-day temporary certificate of occupancy in April 2011, then extended the deadline, then extended it twice more. That permission to operate expired more than a year ago, but the nightclub remains open.

Chief Building Official Tim Johnson insists the bar's owners have been treated no differently than any other Orlando business.

"In the grand scheme of things, one or two little items like that which are not 'life-safety items,' we will allow any business to open," said Johnson, who compared the flammable foam, which has since been removed, to a business that's missing some doorknobs or an office building that has not yet moved in all the furniture.

But permitting files and internal e-mails reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel show there was vehement disagreement about the decision to allow Draft to open its doors.

"We are allowing a serious code violation and the Draft has never even met the minimum code requirements," fire inspector Danny Anderson wrote in an email to Johnson and other city officials in May 2011. "I do not want anyone injured and for that reason I believe this issue needs to be addressed immediately. We have gone above and beyond to help the customer and now is the time to do the right thing, regardless of the political ramifications."

The business is located in a city building -- the Church Street Parking Garage -- where it occupies the most visible ground-floor space across the street from the arena.

City officials were eager for the nightclub to open, hoping it would bring more foot traffic to other businesses west of Interstate 4 and into Parramore. Mayor Buddy Dyer's administration and the City Council gave its owners a five-year lease plus incentives worth more than $300,000, including a renovation allowance, eight months of free rent, a grant and a donation from a city commissioner's district budget.

As previously reported by the Sentinel, the business now owes taxpayers $57,000 in back rent and utilities. An investor, NFL player Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, has taken a majority interest and is now in a legal dispute over debts with the men who originally controlled the business, Willie Fisher and Pat Nix.

City officials allowed Rodgers-Cromartie to start fresh, with no back-rent bill, by taking over the lease under a new corporation. Fisher accused the city of favoritism.

Financial adviser Kimberly Stewart, who is overseeing the business for Rodgers-Cromartie, would not answer questions about Draft's lack of a valid occupancy permit.

Anderson could not be reached for comment. But records show that he and other inspectors objected to the decision to allow the business to open. A thick layer of flammable foam was glued to the wall as a sound insulator and architectural feature.

The foam isn't allowed under the Florida building code because, if ignited, it would rapidly spread the fire. In 2003, pyrotechnics during a show by the band Great White ignited insulating foam in a Rhode Island nightclub, quickly spreading a blaze that ultimately caused 100 deaths.

"The reason the code is so restrictive on these foams is because it spreads a fire so fast that it's really uncontrollable," said a city official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared losing his job. "In a bar like that, with a high-density occupancy, it's very dangerous."

Email messages reviewed by the Sentinel indicate the internal debate about whether to open the club reached outside the building department and higher up in the Dyer administration, including the directors of the city's Economic Development Department and Downtown Development Board, and a deputy chief administrative officer. Permit records show that the fire chief personally visited the business to look over the violations.

City officials ultimately decided to allow the business to open its doors in April 2011 with a temporary certificate of occupancy, giving the owners time to remove the foam. The city's permission came with the condition that the business maintain a "fire watch" program, in which someone is on duty at all times, ready to sound an alarm and evacuate the building if there were a fire.

But the foam remained for several months before it was finally removed, and there's no evidence that a "fire watch" stayed in place more than a few days. Typically, businesses are required to pay the Fire Department to staff a fire-watch program with an off-duty firefighter. City records show the business paid the city $400 to have a firefighter present for eight hours during its grand opening. After that, city officials say, the owners were allowed to have a security guard take over.

The permit was repeatedly renewed until -- after months with no inspection -- the city's computer system automatically closed the case earlier this year.

The city has made no move to close the business. Johnson said it's the owner's responsibility to straighten it out, and he notified them "several months ago."

"I think we've done our job," Johnson said. "It's just that they've dragged their feet."

Copyright 2012 - Orlando Sentinel

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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