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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Movie theatre fined for locked emergency doors
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 08-24-2013 01:03 PM
Mike, the reason I'm for such a steep fine is because I see businesses all the time with blatant death traps in the event of a fire. A few have aggravated me to the point where I have brought it to the attention of the manager and a couple to the corporate office. Months later, nothing has changed. With rare exceptions (a business like yours where people truly care), NOTHING works in this day and age except a painful loss of cash.
To twist it into a more personal angle, what if your wife or child was trapped in a business and couldn't escape during a fire and burned to death? $1000? There is no "I'm sorry, we will do better" after the fact. I've always felt fire systems should be treated with extreme care.
To pick on theaters for a moment, a show of hands...how many people (without naming names or locations) know of at least one theater with no functioning fire shutdown on their projectors? By law the movie must stop and the sound system must be muted with lights turned on (these 3 items without human intervention). I've got news for you...from what I've seen most of the "slam it in and run to the next theater" installs during the big VPF race skipped the whole fire alarm tie in.
How many people know of theaters without "crash bars" on all exit doors, and instead have a deadbolt (even IF the inside has a latch that doesn't require a key)?
Seriously, it's a huge problem. Its one of the reasons I designed a bit of overkill into our automation system. When the fire sensor is triggered, the FT system don't just pause the movie and mute the sound, it brings up ALL lights including janitor lights (this is because some theaters have very dark auditorium lighting or have bulbs out), it posts a short note on the screen that a fire has been reported in the building to please exit, it closes the doors to prevent the fire from spreading (they are still easily pushed open by people just like normal, they just aren't held open), and it also shuts down the HVAC system (in case the fire alarm was not tied into the HVAC system or that trigger fails, again to prevent the spread of the fire).
In locations where we are also running their lobby energy management and house system, similar things happen with turning off tvs, video games and so forth...but the system mutes the lobby music except for the lobby microphone, in the event a manager needs to be able to talk to a loud crowd.
All of the above is in addition to the normal fire alarm system (emergency lights, strobes, loud announcements telling people to exit the building, etc).
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-24-2013 06:18 PM
Agreed with every word. I've actually been in a large public building when it caught fire - Woolworths in Wimbledon in 1981 (scroll to bottom of linked page), aged eight and with my mother. The place went from being totally normal to filled with dense smoke, almost in an instant. The fire wrote off the entire building (what was left had to be demolished and the store rebuilt from scratch), and a fireman was killed in the blaze. We lived about 200 yards from the place, and even at home after we left, we could feel the heat from the front yard and my eyes stung from the smoke.
Probably as a result of that experience, I've always been a lot more fire-conscious than many people I knew. At the last theatre I worked, I insisted that the alarm system be tested at the start of every day along with the emergency exits, including the interlocks with the projection automation systems in all the auditoria. We'd set it off using a different break-glass panel, smoke detector or rate-of-rise heat detector each day, so that all were tested on about a 50-day cycle. A lot of people thought this was overkill, and I suspect that most of those who did had never been in or close to a large building that was actually on fire.
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Anslem Rayburn
Master Film Handler
Posts: 476
From: Yuma, AZ, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 08-24-2013 10:43 PM
Our system shuts down all projectors, turns on janitor lights and all emergency lights (which all run on battery backup in the event of a power failure) , and plays a prerecorded message over emergency beacons in every auditorium, the lobby, restrooms, and employee only areas stating an emergency has been reported in the building, asking everyone to calmly exit the building via the nearest exit doors. And we have 9 doors in the lobby all equipped with push bars, as well as exits directly outside in all auditoriums, again with push bars.
We have had fire pull stations pulled as a prank a few times. Even with all of that, most people just sit in there seat until we force them to exit, which we always do if the alarm goes off, even if we're 99% sure it was a prank.
I've actually been called all sorts of names in the past for making someone exit while the alarm was going off. But when a fire station is pulled, our local fire department is automatically deployed and won't clear the building for occupancy until they've gone through every room to ensure it wasn't a real emergency.
I agree with them, there's no point in risking lives over a movie.
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 08-25-2013 01:36 AM
Andrew, I think you may be missing my point above, so I'll twist it around to better make that point.
So a business with front doors that do NOT have crash bars, but instead have deadbolts on the doors doesn't warrant a $10,000 fine?
To quote Will Smith..."awwww hell no."
If the crash bars break and fail to lock the doors, that's fine. But for someone to go running toward a door to get away from a fire (or crazy guy firing a gun everywhere or whatever the emergency is) only to find that the door doesn't open when they push on it??? Sure maybe that door has a little lever that can be flipped, but we're talking about the general public in a panic. It is absolutely unreasonable for ANY business where the public congregates to not have crash bars because the reality of the scenario is that they won't be using their brains. Those people will just be running trying to escape, and the business owner has a responsibility NOT to trap people in such a scenario.
This is similar to the shooting in the Colorado theater last year. Most stadium seating auditoriums (the ones without rear exits) by their mere design are death traps not only to a crazy gunman, but even a fire in the right scenario could trap people on the risers to burn to death. Rear exits should be mandatory regardless of whether they want to stadium the seating or not. To better define it, one exit per corner.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-25-2013 09:05 AM
I am completely with Brad on this. A $250 fine is not big enough to serve as either punishment or a deterrent, and this was an incident in which people actually tried to leave and were blocked from doing so.
Agreed, too, about the importance of having exits at both the front and back of the auditorium (and, for large theatres, in the middle as well). Patrons who sit in the rear of the theatre should not have to walk forward to exit. The Colorado shooting incident provides a good example of why this is a bad thing.
As far as I know, automated fire shutdown of projection equipment is not actually a code requirement in Massachusetts, except in some cities and towns. I implemented it in a manual (35mm) booth about a year ago, using the fire alarm relay to trip relays to close both film projector changeovers and a video projector douser. It was semi-nontrivial to do this, but probably not a bad idea, even though that booth will always have a full-time operator. I don't know if the house lights are part of this system, as that was someone else's purview.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-25-2013 11:24 AM
quote: Anslem Rayburn
Even with all of that, most people just sit in there seat until we force them to exit, which we always do if the alarm goes off...
Good point, and it relates to Brad's about crowd psychology. If a large group of people believe that there is a real threat, they'll panic and stampede. If they believe that there isn't, they'll refuse to move. In the opening weeks of the last theatre I worked full-time at, the sensitivity of each smoke detector and rate-of-rise heat detector needed a lot of tweaking to find the level at which normal events (e.g. residual building dust in the atmosphere) wouldn't trigger them, but evidence of an actual fire would. During this time there were numerous false alarms: two or three a week at the height of the problem, and enough to cause complaints from customers. Eventually, the fire alarm would go off and the collective reaction from both customers and staff would be along the lines of "Yeah, right, here we go again". In a staff meeting I explained the problem as a sort of electronic buy who cries wolf: the risk is that when there really is a fire, people will ignore it.
I've noticed the saame thing when fire alarms have gone off in other places - university lecture theatres, restaurants, and in one case an airport terminal (that was fun, with us all having to go back through the security check after the all clear). Real building fires are now, thankfully, so unusual that when people hear a fire alarm, they simply don't believe that it's telling them about an actual fire.
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Mark Hajducki
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 500
From: Edinburgh, UK
Registered: May 2003
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posted 08-25-2013 02:57 PM
In another section of the guidance it states:
quote:
In some larger premises, when only certain staff are on the premises and there is a security issue, it may be acceptable to restrict the number of emergency exits immediately available, e.g when only security staff are present at night, or prior to opening the premises to the public in the morning. Staff should be made fully aware of any restrictions and the number of exits not immediately available should be limited.
Many buildings use the front entrance as a fire exit when the building is open, at night this will often be locked or secured with a roller shutter.
In staff only areas it may be permitted to have a more complex door opening system ranging from standard door handles to electromagnetic door locks or bolts.
quote:
When the fire sensor is triggered, the FT system don't just pause the movie and mute the sound, it brings up ALL lights including janitor lights (this is because some theaters have very dark auditorium lighting or have bulbs out), it posts a short note on the screen that a fire has been reported in the building to please exit,
Does it do this immediately any alarm point or sensor is activated, in all screens simultaneously?
Depending on the building design it may be better to operate a phased system, giving staff the opportunity to get into position and verify that there is a problem. The building can then be evacuated in stages (starting with the screens nearest the problem) until everybody is out.
There is a risk to evacuating, especially in sites where there are many stairs on the escape route (one local cinema has evacuation routes with 6 floors of stairs to climb down). There is a substantial risk of tripping and falling with potential crushing by following customers.
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