Fire Safety at Warehouse Shouldn’t Be Taken Lightly
The Sun-Sentinel ran a piece recently on the problems faced by small businesses operating out of a warehouse in Pembroke Park, not far from our own main office in Pembroke Pines. The article says the warehouse has housed 300 small businesses in former storage units for as long as 30 years -- but an inspector has only recently discovered that none of them are up to the fire code. Because the units were originally storage rather than commercial or industrial buildings, they didn’t need back doors -- but as businesses, they do.
I sympathize with these business owners. It’ll take creative thinking to solve the problem posed by the building’s structural limitations. But as a businessman myself, I know it’s very important to solve the problem, and there are two reasons why. One is the obvious one: Nobody wants a loss of life. If a fire ever does happen, every cent put into preventing unnecessary deaths will be worth it. You might remember the disaster at the Station nightclub in Rhode Island in 2003, in which 100 people died and many others were injured. In that case, there were fire exits -- but they were obscured by smoke, causing a stampede for the front door. The club was also above its capacity and didn’t have sprinklers installed because of a grandfather clause in local laws.
The other reason may not seem quite as clear for folks who aren’t personal injury attorneys or owners of large businesses. If you’re a business open to the public or clients, you have a legal responsibility in the State of Florida to keep your premises free of dangers, or warn people of any you can’t fix. And you’re legally liable for any injuries that take place if you don’t meet those responsibilities. For the folks in the Pembroke Park warehouse, that means that they could be sued for wrongful deaths or serious personal injuries if they’re unlucky enough to have a catastrophic fire break out without the right safety measures in place. Nobody wants the financial or moral responsibility for that kind of tragedy.
If you’ve been seriously hurt by a preventable danger on someone else’s property, contact Cohn, Smith & Cohn for a free evaluation of your case.
