I'm curious: do you actually have evidence that city officials ignored violations?
Your tone is typical, but it took me a whopping 30 sec to find this
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/us/warehouse-party-fire-oakland-search.html
Proof, as you seek, will come in the wake of criminal charges, but will likely never touch public officials...
Several articles have stated that the location was cited numerous times for violations, but that no follow up action was taken. And yes, I've taken that at face value and have no concrete evidence YET that the city ignored the follow up... other than the fact that 30+ people are dead.
Do you have any evidence that the city took the appropriate steps to prevent the venue from continued operation, other than issuing citations? At the moment the preponderance of information suggests not, but that could change.
“I’m curious: do you actually have evidence that city officials ignored violations?”
Yes, they were many complaints. They did not apply for permits for the event. They had people living there. The tenants were instructed to tell anyone that they didn’t live there, but were “Artist” and were working through the night.
The “manager” lived on site with his wife and kids. Multiple calls due to the overflow of their garbage (sorry, “ART”)
I spent some time researching this yesterday and the more I found, the more obvious this place existed with a wink and nudge from authorities.
If you really are interested, the details are available, but you will have to search carefully. GhostShip site doesn’t show up with Google search.
http://www.oaklandghostship.com/
This is their website. Scroll down to last image. A nice cozy home type atmosphere for a few laughs with friends. Only thing missing is it doesn’t look like the featured Cheese Pizza.
Its been reported that as recently as three weeks ago, complaints were filed, inspections were made, etc.
I actually think private property rights and bureaucracy played a hand. City code officials usually have a difficult time (and a long drawn out process) trying to enforce code violations, because of strong property rights. That’s a good thing.
But I think officials (and the law) do a poor job of weighing private property rights vs the public good. Sure this was a privately owned building...but the second it became apparent that this warehouse was being used as a public gathering place (parties), the enforcement should change. People naturally assume, when they go to a commercial building, that it is built to code, inspected, and relatively safe, at their peril when officials treat a firetrap like this warehouse no different than a complaint over the grass being too tall.
It wasn’t zoned for these parties (a violation to answer your original question), and the city should have found a judge to give them the authority to put a padlock on the door.
It’s pretty self evident when they’re talking about numerous complaints on the news and the facility advertised parties and activities online and probably on phone poles and such in the area.
It’s pretty self evident when they’re talking about numerous complaints on the news and the facility advertised parties and activities online and probably on phone poles and such in the area.
“I’m curious: do you actually have evidence that city officials ignored violations?”
It was a warehouse that had been illegally converted into apartments. It obviously had inadequate fire suppression sprinklers and it obviously had inadequate fire exits.
Did the building inspectors red tag the warehouse like they should have?
No.
There’s your evidence.