Disco’s License Suspended for Fire Code Violations

In what Los Angeles Fire Department officials called a “precedent-setting action,” the Fire Commission on Thursday suspended the operating permit of a firm that operates a discotheque in the Bonaventure for 30 days because of overcrowding.

Sheldon Lodmer, an attorney for American Discotheque, which leases the space and operates the Fantasia Disco in the downtown hotel, said he would seek a court order restraining the city from enforcing the suspension, which would be applied during two, 15-day periods over six months.

Lodmer said the commission’s action was “arbitrary and unneeded, since we have straightened things out there and there have been no violations for nine months.”

Deputy Fire Chief Craig Drummond said the suspension is the first of its type, and added that similar actions will be started against other discos and clubs that are “flagrant violators, just as the Fantasia was.”

He said the operators of Fantasia had been convicted seven times in Los Angeles Municipal Court of allowing more than the legal capacity of 384 patrons. In one instance, there were 219 persons over the limit in the disco, Drummond said.

Fire Chief Donald Manning told the commission: “There is no more dangerous offense than overcrowding. In almost all cases where a large loss of life has occurred in a night club or theater fire, it has been a case of overcrowding.”

Fire officials said that the allowable crowd limits are based on available exits and convenient means of clearing a hall in case of fire.

The disco’s operators were found guilty of 20 violations of the city’s Fire Code, all related to overcrowding, after a Fire Department administrative hearing.

The Fire Department, on Manning’s recommendation, had sought a 45-day suspension.