Their best Sgt. Schultz impression
On Jan. 25, television viewers around the world saw flames leaping from the roof of the 12-year-old Monte Carlo on the Las Vegas Strip as a three-alarm fire led to the evacuation of 6,000 people and caused $100 million in damage.
The blaze was caused by contract workers from an outfit called Union Erectors, hired by hotel management to build a corrugated steel walkway on the building’s roof.
The work was undertaken without a required “hot work” permit from the Clark County Fire Department.
The fire could have been prevented if either the hotel or the contractors had acquired the required county permit, County Fire Chief Steve Smith said this week.
Processing the permit application would have afforded county officials an opportunity to review the job and site plans and remind personnel of proper safeguards, including how to run a worthwhile “fire watch,” Chief Smith said Tuesday.
In January, the chief said workers had failed to post a required fire watch to detect chance ignitions from falling slag, and had also failed to use protective “slag mats” to protect the roof’s flammable rubber membrane and the building’s foam upper facade.
Tuesday, the chief softened that judgment somewhat, saying an investigation revealed the contractors mounted an “ineffective” fire watch, at best. Besides, the chief explained, Union Erectors hadn’t realized they needed a county permit; they thought an “in-house permit system” at the Monte Carlo was sufficient. So the chief announced Tuesday the Fire Department has decided to issue no citations in connection with the blaze.
After all, Chief Smith explained, the consequences of issuing such a misdemeanor citation “are minor.” The chief would rather spend his time stressing “the importance of getting a hot work permit,” than giving anyone a black mark on their permanent record, he says.
And the way to impress on everyone how important this is to … do nothing?
Coincidentally, on the same day, county inspectors wrote up violation notices for six high-roller suites on the 33rd floor of the Paris Las Vegas after determining steam saunas were installed in bathrooms there without permits or inspections of the electrical work.
When this follows on the heels of county building inspectors doing their best impression of John Banner’s Sgt. “I see nothing” Schultz from the old “Hogan’s Heroes” TV show when they were supposed to check and see whether the Rio had gutted and renovated entire hotel floors without proper permits (they sure had), it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes — heck, it doesn’t take a Barnaby Jones — to start to pick up a pattern here.
The hotel should have made obtaining the proper permits a requirement before work ever began on the rooftop job. The contractor — which presumably values its business license and its bonding — should have refused to move a finger till the proper permits were issued.
In fact, a misdemeanor criminal citation is not necessarily all that “minor.” It could seriously impact the resort’s fire insurance rates, as well as how they fare in any subsequent civil litigation. And that might be precisely the kind of bottom-line cost that would finally get the attention of someone higher up than the janitor in these corporate food chains.
As it is, the number of vacationers who saw the blaze on TV and decided to change this year’s vacation plans can never be known in full.
The taxpayers pay plenty for members of the Fire Department to do their jobs. And they sure do them when it’s some small-fry Average Joe caught out burning weeds in a vacant lot without the proper permits.
A preventable fire causes $100 million in damage, endangering the lives of 6,000 people and the entire tourist lifeblood of this town, and there are no citations?
Where’s Sgt. Schultz?
