Twenty-one people were trampled to death in Chicago early Monday morning as a crowd tried to escape a city dance floor. The tragedy drew Madison city officials’ attention to nightclub safety just days before the scheduled opening of a new dance club downtown.
Approximately 1,500 partygoers had packed E2 dance hall above Chicago restaurant Epitome Sunday night. According to reports, a fight between two women prompted security guards to use pepper spray to disperse the mayhem. Patrons trying to escape fumes found exits locked and rushed down staircases, injuring at least 50.
Tom Garver, a member of the city of Madison’s Alcohol License Review Committee, said it seemed out of place for Chicago to be the scene of such tragedy, because, he said, the city has some of the strictest fire and building codes in the nation.
Chicago city officials had obtained a court order to close the club in July after finding 11 building-code violations such as poor construction, stairways and exits. The club was not closed, but criminal-contempt charges could be brought against the owner of the club as soon as today.
“Chicago was the scene of one of the worst theater fires, at the Iroquois Theater, of the 20th century,” Garver said. “The guy who owned the place was clearly disobeying the law.”
Garver said in order to operate a dance club in Madison, a club proprietor must first obtain a cabaret license, which he said can be an arduous process in the city.
Jim Schiavo, co-owner of Club Majestic, a new nightclub set to open tomorrow, said he was in charge of plans for renovating the building from the 96-year old Majestic Theater into the new club.
“We worked with the fire marshal directly, and he assisted us in developing an evacuation plan,” Schiavo said.
Club Majestic was held to the tighter renovation standards under historic building codes because the building is so old.
Carver said the city fire marshal told Schiavo and his brother, co-owner Nicholas Schiavo, the building would need either more exits or an advanced sprinkler system. The Schiavos opted to add exit doors and install a high-tech smoke-detector system in their new club, which will have a capacity of 486 people.
“There will be panic hardware attached to those doors, so that in case of an emergency you can just push on the handle and they’ll open from the inside,” Schiavo said. “We also have light-beam detectors, which monitor the amount of particles in the air.”
Schiavo said if the number of particles in the air passes a certain threshold, the system registers them as smoke and shuts down music from the disc jockey booth and turns lights on in the club.
Garver said one of the problems adding to the Chicago tragedy was the fact the club was on the second floor.
“Second-floor bars and clubs have always had a problem because of exiting,” Garver said. “We only really see that problem in Madison with some of the basement clubs that are below street level.”
Schiavo said his staff has trained extensively in emergency procedures before tonight’s opening and that emergency exit plans are posted throughout the club, including information on where to exit, alternate routes in case of blocked exits and the location of a meeting place for a head count of patrons after an emergency exit.