Reply #22: Sad, sad, sad.........

[HiddenInVA]

And we wonder about the state of society today.....

As a FF, I've shown up at restaurants such as this many times before in the past, and I'm sure I will
many times in the future.

For the poster who commented on how the manager should figure out why the alarm is going off, and how
this would make him a better manager, I'll venture to say that it's a toss-up. Yes, it's possible that
there are practices going on in his building that may be causing the alarms to go off. Hopefully, there
is somebody at corporate who tracks incidents such as this, and monitors number of alarms that each
manager has on their shift, the cause as relayed by the responding fire official, etc. This should all
be in the daily log or report from the manager, and is something that corporate is keeping an eye on,
as most (not all, but a vast majority) jurisdictions keep track of the number of calls to a particular
place of business, the circumstances, etc. And if they reach a certain number for no justifiable reason,
the city/county will fine the business for failure to maintain their safety equipment. (A building code
requirement that they can point as justification.)

But it's also possible that the manager has no control over the problem - mechanical devices break/
malfunction, faulty installation, etc. (I know one restaurant in our first-due area that we constantly
respond to for a faulty detector. The manager is embarrassed as all get out when we show up, and has
shown the fire marshal his reports, but it appears that the national chain thinks it's cheaper to pay
the fines, than it is to shut the place down long enough to correct the problem, and lose the couple of
day's receipts. Go figure....) The FM also closed down a place not too long ago that had a standard
practice (knuckleheads hung themselves by even putting it in writing! ) of shutting down their
fire alarms in the morning when they opened up, as the detectors in the kitchen were always going off,
and the owner didn't want to hear them beeping, and didn't want to waste his $$ to pay to get it fixed
right...

As for expecting a free or comped meal, well, that might be good PR on one hand, but to expect it
because you were 'inconvenienced' or the alarm jangled your nerves a bit? I can't say that I agree on
that one. You were out in the dining room eating your filet, the alarm goes off, but you can't see or
smell anything. "Oh bother!" But just because you can't see or smell it, doesn't mean that there isn't
a major fire ramping up back in the kitchen, (and the cooks hauled ass out the backdoor w/o saying a
word, leaving you all to fry) and that alarm is giving you the time to get out the door with you and
your family's skin in one piece. Considering how fast fire can spread, especially with kitchens using
gas for cooking, you might need that minute in order to escape.

Personally, I'd rather be inconvenienced for safety's sake, than have my widow suing the restaurant for
not having safety equipment in place.

Just my thoughts.....