Dear Red Phone,
“I attended a concert at the Old City Hall on the second floor and there had to be between 175 to 200 people. We got to leaving and I discovered there is only one exit. In fact, one of the doors at the one exit was locked. I’m surprised the fire marshal is happy with this. Is the fire marshal aware of this? Thank you.”
Dear reader, the following is a response from Community Development Director Kristi Abrams with the City of Gilroy. We hope you find this helpful:
“The total maximum occupant load for the upstairs area is 191, consisting of 18 for the smallest room, 134 for the largest/main room and 41 for the medium room attached to the large/main room. The provided exiting is adequate should all these rooms be at maximum occupancy.
There are two exits from the second floor as required by the Building and Fire Code. The first is the main stairway that discharges down to the main entry lobby and served by the main front doors. The second is the east stairwell, located between the large and medium size rooms, that exits to Sixth Street. Both exits have illuminated exit signage and both are provided with emergency lighting should the power go out.
An inspection was conducted which confirmed the exits are not blocked and are properly marked as well as verified the correct occupancies are posted.
The locked first floor door mentioned by the caller is not an exit door and would actually lead patrons back into the restaurant. This is a good time to remind readers that not all doors are exits and they should be looking for illuminated exit signs. Building should be exited immediately if there is an alarm sounding or if someone has indicated that there is a fire. Many injuries, and even death, can be attributed to persons not promptly exiting and then at the last minute large numbers of persons find they cannot exit at the same time. It is smoke, not the fire, that typically kills and smoke can become overwhelming in a short amount of time.”
