The Riverhead Town fire marshal’s office is so short-staffed it is “physically impossible” for it to keep up with fire inspections mandated by state law — and public safety is at risk because of it, according to Riverhead Fire Chiefs Council president Tom Campanaro.
“Every publicly occupied building must be inspected once a year. Each inspection takes hours to do. Look around. Do the math. It’s a physical impossibility.” Campanaro said.
Five of the 10 restaurants on Main Street lack current public assembly permits, according to Riverhead fire marshal’s records reviewed by RiverheadLOCAL pursuant to Freedom of Information Law requests. Three of the five — Diggers, Dark Horse and Cody’s — were inspected early this year but the permits weren’t issued because of observed conditions that had to be corrected; as of July 31, they are still awaiting re-inspection by the fire marshal’s office, which hasn’t been able to get back for the re-inspections. The town has never issued a public assembly permit to The Riverhead Project, which opened in 2011, because of code compliance issues with the private dining area and bar built in the basement, according to the fire marshal’s files. The Athens Grill, which was destroyed by fire on June 28, had not yet been inspected by the fire marshal this year.
Campanaro said there’s no way of knowing for sure whether an inspection might have prevented the Athens Grill fire. The cause of the fire, which firefighters said started in the kitchen, has not yet been officially determined. The fire marshal’s fire investigation report has not yet been completed, according to the town’s response to a FOIL request.
“If something goes catastrophically wrong, the state’s going to be involved and they’re going to want to know why they didn’t get inspected,” Campanaro said. “The codes exist for good reason. The inspections are required for a reason. It’s public safety.”
Cliff’s Rendezvous, which had a kitchen fire on the afternoon of June 25, had been inspected in February and has a valid public assembly permit. The fire marshal determined the cause to be accidental, due to “unattended cooking,” according to a June 27 report on the investigation. The fire started in an upper broiler, where a cook had put some bacon on a tray to cook, then stepped away. The fire extended out the rear vent of the broiler and into duct work where it ignited accumulated grease, and spread to an exhaust fan on the roof, according to the report.
“To my knowledge the town is meeting its legal obligations for inspections. The job’s getting done,” Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter said. “The Athens Grill did not go on fire because the fire marshal was not there,” he said.
“You can never have enough staff out there to do it all,” Walter said. “But people are not any less safe.”
That’s been a bone of contention between the town and its volunteer fire service since the town board cut one of the town’s three full-time fire marshals in 2011. The move drew sharp criticism from the firefighters, who demonstrated at town hall in protest in October 2010.
“Can you really put a price on safety and the lives of people who live, work and visit Riverhead or the firefighters who protect and serve this community?” then-Riverhead fire chief Nick Luparella asked town board members during a public meeting.
Campanaro and others say the fire prevention situation in Riverhead has gotten more critical since 2011, thanks in part to the more than half a million square feet of new commercial construction now underway on Route 58 alone.
“Riverhead is the only place on the island with that kind of construction going on,” Campanaro said.
The fire marshals are responsible for ensuring that new commercial construction — and renovations — comply with state fire codes. They review building plans and make on-site inspections. This responsibility alone is a full-time job, according to former Riverhead chief fire marshal Bruce Johnson, who said he wanted to hire a fourth full-time fire marshal more than six years ago.
Usually the chief fire marshal handles plan review and other administrative tasks, with the fire marshals under his supervision working in the field. But in Riverhead, the chief fire marshal has to do it all. The chief fire marshal at the time of the staff cutbacks, Scott Davonski, resigned a year after his staff was reduced. Former Riverhead fire chief Luparella said at the time the resignation was a direct result of the cutbacks.
“Even with three fire marshals it was rough,” Luparella told RiverheadLOCAL in January 2012. “The workload is huge.”
After Davonski quit, former fire marshal Craig Zitek, whose job was eliminated by the 2011 budget cut, was hired to replace him as chief fire marshal.
In December, with construction imminent on the Wal-Mart, Costco, Saber-Riverhead and Northville Commerce Park developments on Route 58, the town board hired a call-in fire inspector, Christopher Mount, to help with routine field inspections. The 2013 budget allows the call-in inspector to work up to 17.5 hours per week at $20 per hour. But Mount, who is employed full-time in the Brookhaven Town fire marshal’s office, has not been able to work that many hours, according to town board members.
Councilman John Dunleavy said the board should hire a second call-in inspector to help fill in. Dunleavy, who got an earful from the fire chiefs at the last council meeting July 17, said he also believes the third full-time fire marshal position should be restored.
“Let’s look at the caseload they have,” said Councilman James Wooten. “Once all that commercial stuff is done,” he said, referring to the construction on Route 58, which, he acknowledges, keeps the fire marshals very busy, “do we have a need for another full-timer in there? I don’t want to over-staff,” he said. Wooten said he is liaison to the fire marshal’s office and they have never contacted him about staffing issues.
Asked about staffing levels in his office Chief Fire Marshal Zitek declined comment for this story, citing a town policy that all media requests for comment be directed to the town supervisor’s office.
Johnson, who left Riverhead town government for a job with the International Code Council, said the town should do a community needs assessment following standards and guidelines set by the National Fire Protection Association. The town should look at the inventory of commercial buildings that require periodic inspection — something mandated by state law — determine how often each needs to be inspected, and then, using formulas set forth in NFPA standards currently in draft form, determine how many personnel hours are needed to get the job done and staff the office accordingly, he said.
The supervisor said he’d never heard anyone talk about doing any such assessment. “There are self-serving standards for a lot of things,” Walter said in a phone interview yesterday.
Nevertheless, he said he believes the town should “try to restaff” the fire marshal position that was cut in 2011. “Hopefully our tax base has grown enough that we’ll be able to do this.”
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