Reply #117: let's list the ethical issues involved:

[NorthernSpy]

• The restaurant has to maintain safe premises. Keeping smoke detectors and fire alarms in good working order is part of that.
  
  
• Nothing should impede an evacuation.
  
  When a fire alarm sounds, lives and safety are the paramount concern. People have an ethical duty not to delay even briefly by collecting dishes from the table and attempting to carry them out the door, because this could slow down the evacuation; create a hazard from dropped dishes and spilled food; and could have the effect of reducing the sense of urgency and encouraging others not to take the alarm seriously. Also, the restaurant must not impede evacuation by attempting to collect payment.
  
  
• Workers must have their pay. Waitstaff largely rely on tips.
  
  
• The restaurant may not cheat its customers by charging them for goods not delivered. Ordering people off the premises via fire alarm, so that they cannot make use of the goods delivered, is the same thing as not delivering the goods.
  
  
• Customers must pay for goods received. They must settle up for what they rightly owe.
  
  
• People must not get in the way of rescue personnel.
  
  
• Using the fire alarm as an opportunity not to pay for goods received might create an incentive for the restaurant to turn off or cover smoke detectors, or to make pullable fire alarms hard to access. This could endanger people.

By taking that whole swirl of competing ethical issues into account, each person in that situation can figure out what he or she should do.