Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America's Deadliest Rock Concert by Barylick John

Author:Barylick, John [Barylick, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781611682656
Google: KR1Ec_2_ax8C
Amazon: 1611682657
Barnesnoble: 1611682657
Goodreads: 16618171
Publisher: UPNE
Published: 2012-08-08T06:38:39+00:00

Reporters and the public wanted answers from the town of West Warwick, too. How could a club with highly flammable foam on its walls pass fire inspections? Was the club overcrowded that night? Just what was the club’s permitted capacity?

Some answers would be long in coming. Some would never be given. As to the club’s legally permitted occupancy, no one seemed to know. On the day after the fire, West Warwick fire chief Charles Hall told a reporter for the Providence Journal that The Station’s permitted occupancy was “300.” (He was only off by 104.) He “strongly denied” to reporters for the Boston Herald that there had been more than 300 patrons in the club at the time of the fire. (Confirmatory interviews and body counts after the fire showed that this statement by Hall was low by a mere 162.)

The man who had increased the club’s capacity from 253 to 317 in December 1999, then to 404 only three months later, West Warwick fire marshal Denis Larocque, had no public comment after the fire. In a taped police interview, however, he was asked, “Do you know if you’ve had any complaints from citizens directly to the fire department or to yourself regarding overcrowding there?” Larocque answered, “Um . . . we haven’t had any complaints, um, that I can recall about any overcrowding or any type of complaints, complaints of that nature.”

Perhaps Larocque forgot that on November 15, 1999, acting West Warwick police chief Gerald Tellier wrote to the fire chief at the time, Peter Brousseau, stating “there have been a number of complaints about the Filling Station located on Cowesett Avenue. Could you please have your Fire Prevention Officer [Larocque] check that building and advise me as to the correct occupancy limit for the building?” It probably also slipped Larocque’s mind that he himself then wrote to the building’s owner, Triton Realty, on December 13, 1999, that “a complaint was received in this office concerning The Filling Station.” Perhaps Larocque had also forgotten that on February 18, 2000 — one month before he increased the club’s capacity to 404 at the request of Michael Derderian — his own boss, Fire Chief Richard Rita, had written to the West Warwick Town Council regarding The Station’s liquor license transfer to the Derderians: “Another issue that is of grave concern to me is an ongoing problem of overcrowding which occurs at this establishment. Occupancy limits are determined and are exceeded on busy nights. Again, this presents a problem should evacuation or emergency medical treatment become necessary.”

Given the post-fire confusion over the permitted occupancy of The Station, and the many requests by news media for reliable information on that subject, the town solicitor for West Warwick, Timothy Williamson, undertook to clear the air, publishing a “To Whom It May Concern” letter on March 14, 2003. A tour de farce of inaccuracy and obfuscation, the attorney’s letter contained the following highlights:

Please note that the capacity numbers in the facility formerly known as Glenn’s

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