Staff Editorial: Catch a fire

The College Park City Council decided Wednesday that the safety of students and residents of College Park was not important enough to continue to be a thorn in the side of Santa Fe Café owner Mark Srour. That might be an oversimplification, but in our view, Santa Fe is an accident waiting to happen until it has sprinklers installed sprinklers installed.

Srour has even seemed to acknowledge the risk: He signed an agreement with the city to install sprinklers almost five years ago. But after the window of time the council granted Srour to install a sprinkler system slipped past, the council has refused to devote legal resources toward enforcing that contract.

Considering the bar is covered in wood paneling inside and out, handles huge crowds and has a kitchen to boot, it's odd the city hasn't handled it with a greater sense of urgency. Rather than exercise its legal right to ask the courts to enforce the contract, the council has decided to issue a letter to the county liquor board not only supporting the renewal of Santa Fe's liquor license, but also passing the responsibility of ensuring patrons' safety on to the board by requesting that it "encourage" Santa Fe to install the sprinkler system. After nearly five years, something tells us that Srour needs a little more than gentle encouragement in order to get his bar up to standards.

The council had a major opportunity to stand firm on its own requirements but instead chose to take an easy route, leaving hundreds of patrons at risk each night. What kind of precedent is the council setting by simply allowing Srour to disregard a contract? Can we even fault Srour for taking advantage of the council's lackadaisical approach to contractual agreements and bare minimum safety standards of an establishment?

The Diamondback's Brady Holt reported Wednesday that Councilwoman Mary Cook said, "I don't think we can continue to accept excuses." Of course the council shouldn't continue to accept excuses, nor should it have accepted excuses for the past four years. The deaths of students Michael Scrocca and David Ellis in off-campus housing should make us more vigilant about fire safety everywhere. It's not hard to imagine the havoc and tragedy a fire on a busy night at Santa Fe could inflict on students here.

It's not an impossibility or an overdramatic reach. In 2003, 100 patrons perished in a fire at a Rhode Island nightclub after pyrotechnics used by a band malfunctioned, igniting the mainly wood interior of the club. Like Santa Fe, the club did not have a sprinkler system. Who knows how many lives could have been saved had the club installed adequate sprinklers? The city council should hope and pray that in the near future another paper in another town is not saying the same thing about Santa Fe Café. Those lives would rest on their shoulders. Sleep soundly with that realization, council members.