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Also, this is very damning for the club owners. From Yahoo news:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The singer for a band whose pyrotechnics display set off last week's disastrous nightclub fire will ask for immunity from prosecution before testifying to a grand jury, his attorney said Friday. And an insulation dealer said club owners bought flammable packing foam, not soundproofing foam, to use in the club.

(snip)

Meanwhile, investigators have taken samples of foam packaging products from a company in Johnston that supplied the nightclub's owners with material that was installed to appease neighbors upset by the club's noise.

Aram DerManouelian, president of American Foam Corp., said the soundproofing was purchased for $575 in June 2000. That was a few months after the Derderian brothers bought The Station.

DerManouelian said his records show the club bought 25 sheets of foam, which he described as egg-crate packaging material. The invoice does not say who at the club ordered it.

The company doesn't manufacture the foam, but cuts it, he said. The firm also doesn't sell insulation specifically designed for acoustical purposes, only packaging material, he said.

"They wanted the lowest grade, the cheapest stuff," he told The Associated Press on Friday. "They asked for egg-crate material and that's what we sold them. It's good packaging material. You just can't light it on fire. We sell fire-retardant foam, but that's not what they were looking for. ... It costs about twice as much."

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So the owners knowingly purchased flammable packing foam to use as sound proofing insulation. Gross negligence in the violation of a fire code that lead to 96 deaths. The fire inspector failed to test it. I see a fire chief out of a job and possibly facing prosecution and the City/State getting sued big time by families and survivors.

I've been following this story closely, and it doesn't good criminally for the club owners. But my guess is that both club owners and band are going to be found negligent in the civil cases which will certainly result.

A little common sense all around would have prevented this horrible tragedy. Fire is an opportunistic sneak that preys on the unwary, doesn't give much mercy and rarely, second chances. My heart goes out to the victims of the tragedy, and even those responsible, for they were all-too-human in their lack of appreciation and fear of this killer.

"When permission was denied, pyrotechnics were not used.''

"he pretty much walked away from me.''

These are weasel-words.

In the first lawyer's disclaimer, he obfuscates, using "When" in a place which should have held "Every time", or at least "Whenever". The statement here could be used "truthfully" if the band didn't use pyrotechnics the one time they were specifically asked not to, even if they went ahead twenty other times without having gotten proper authorization.

In the second, did "pretty much walked away" leave a tacit the impression between the parties that the band would go ahead with the pyrotechnics without protest from the Club? From what's been stated, the reader can't know, but the speaker sure could be leaving behind a misleading impression with his testimony. There could be quite an iceberg under the tip about which we're being "informed."

Obviously, both parties were aware of the pyrotechnics, yet no one had a state-required license. Are we admitting ignorance of the law as some kind of excuse here? Since when?

Promoters, advocates, lawyers! Grrrr.