A rash of nightclub overcrowding violations has flared up across San Diego in recent years, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue Department officials, leading to several crackdowns intended to protect bar patrons from potential fire hazards.
In May, three San Diego nightclubs reached a plea agreement with the city attorney’s office to settle multiple occupancy limit violations issued in 2006.
The three nightclubs are Hennessey’s Tavern in Pacific Beach and two downtown venues, the Gaslamp Tavern, 868 Fifth Ave., and Xavier’s Bar & Grill, 750 Fifth Ave.
Hennessey’s exceeded its maximum occupancy level of 188 people by 324 on St. Patrick’s Day of 2006, according to Deputy Fire Marshal Conley Broome.
When inspectors revisited Hennessey’s on St. Patrick’s Day in 2007, Broome said, they stopped counting after finding over 266 patrons in the bar and restaurant.
Gaslamp Tavern exceeded its occupancy limit on four accounts, and Xavier’s Bar & Grill exceeded its limit on two accounts in 2006. Managers from all three bars declined to comment for this article.
A coalition of inspectors from the Fire Department’s Night Details Inspection Team, San Diego Police Department and the California Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control (ABC) randomly inspect San Diego nightclubs at night and on weekends, according to Broome.
Broome said that this task force has been compelled to respond to maximum occupancy violations “too often” in recent years. Broome estimated that the task force has mitigated close to 40 major overcrowding situations since its establishment in 2001.
The fire department judges any occupancy level at least 20 percent over a bar’s occupancy limit to be a major violation requiring immediate action.
When inspectors discover a major violation, Broome said they typically will empty the bar or nightclub of its patrons and allow back in the maximum number of people the building may legally hold.
The bars “know how to keep track. They have counting systems in place,” Broom said.= “But a lot of times they’ll lose count because the door person will get distracted, [or] they only total their counts every half hour “¦ Sometimes they’ll just let big parties in, that are VIP, knowing they’re overcrowded. It’s a numbers game.”
Richard Pena, the general manager of Pacific Beach’s Plum Crazy Saloon, uses an electronic counter to keep track of his bar’s nightly patrons.
“Every building as a business has a maximum occupancy, and that’s the number you stay at. And how do you keep track of that? You use counters,” Pena said.
Pena estimates that the task force has made random inspections on Garnet Avenue, where Plum Crazy is located, “probably on seven days in the last two or three weeks. It’s a great thing to make sure PB doesn’t get out of control.”
Typically, task force inspectors will cite a bar for violating its occupancy code and may inform the Drug Abatement Response Team at the offices of City Attorney Mike Aguirre, according to Broome.
Depending on the magnitude or the frequency of the violation, the response team will send the case to be judged by the attorney.
Diane Silva-Martinez, head deputy attorney at the city attorney’s office, said that the city may fine nightclubs a maximum of $1,000 for overcrowding misdemeanors.
In the case of Hennessey’s, Xavier’s and the Gaslamp Tavern, the three bars were asked to make donations totaling $10,500 to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Foundation.
“We embrace creative sentencing,” Silva-Martinez explained.
The attorney’s office “came up with a plea bargain [so that] in order to restore the harm committed, the defendant picks a nonprofit or some group in the community and makes a donation,” said.
To promote this practice, which Silva-Martinez calls “restorative justice,” the city attorney’s office will sometimes ask defendants to donate money to local nonprofits that work to improve areas related to the crimes committed.
The attorney selected the San Diego Fire-Rescue Foundation, a nonprofit recently established to train and equip San Diegans to respond properly to fires.
“Over the years, unfortunately, there have been overcrowded nightclub situations resulting in deaths.
“It is extremely difficult to have that large a crowd safely exit the building,” Silva-Martinez said, referring to the Rhode Island nightclub fire and subsequent stampede that killed 98 people and injured more than 200 in February 2003.
“So that’s the danger. If you had a fire, you would have some people scrambling for the exits, and there’s a huge public safety risk.”