Comments by "Sean" (@sean2015) on "Station Nightclub Owners Tell Their Side Of Story On 48 Hours" video.

1:16 - 1:40 this Scott James guy is full of crap. Whether the nightclub capacity was 260, 300 or 404 is completely beside the point. For the record, there were 460 people inside the nightclub when the fire broke out. There had been as many as 480 earlier in the evening, but 15-20 people left early. So yes, the nightclub was well over capacity. But the REAL issue was that the legal capacity had been improperly and illegally increased two times after the Derderians purchased the nightclub. Originally, it had been around 250-260. To earn additional profit and draw more bands, the Derderians leaned on the West Warwick fire marshal (Dennis Larocque) to increase it to 300. Later on they decided 300 wasn't enough and requested it to be increased even further, to 404. For reasons that will never be known, the fire marshal agreed, and he did so by illegally classifying the entire building as "standing room only" -- something no fire marshal has ever done before or since.
16
They didn't even necessarily need a sprinkler system. They could've spent a couple of hundred more dollars on a fire-resistant foam and this never would've happened. Or they could've not been so greedy with ticket sales and limited the crowd size to no more than 300, instead of almost 500 (...462 were inside at the time the fire started and 15-20 had left early, plus there were a few people smoking in the parking lot). They could've even headed down to Home Depot to pick up two fire extinguishers (less than a hundred bucks with tax) and even that might have bought just enough time for everybody to get out safely. But a sprinkler system would've definitely saved just about everybody in the club and it would've cost them less than what they spent on their sound system.
13
He did, and guess who likely told him how dangerous the polyurethane foam was? The West Warwick fire marshal.
5
@SportsMusicCars your comments about Dennis Larocque are well-taken. Larocque you could say is the "missing link" in this whole saga - he's never spoken publicly about the incident, and heck nobody is even sure what he looks like now. (I could be standing next to him in line at Target and not even know who he was). From what I heard, he moved to Florida after taking an early retirement due to some type of "disability" (probably just because he didn't want to deal with all the hate mail or interview requests from reporters). But aside from the Derderians, he's the only player that I feel deserved to be held criminally and/or civilly liable. People constantly point fingers at Jack Russell and Dan Biechele (who I feel got scapegoated) but Larocque's name rarely gets mentioned nor does the extent to which he played a role in the fire. It's a mystery about why he not only illegally increased the building's capacity but also why he allowed the foam on the walls. To me it's not even a question of whether he noticed the foam. I am CERTAIN he noticed it -- despite his denials -- but the question is WHY would he (WHY did he) let it slide? He would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Was he a close friend of the Derderians? Did the Derderians bribe him? (he probably made well into the six figures as it was, and the Derderians were not only cash-strapped but also notoriously cheap, so I just can't see them being able to buy him off so easily). We'll never know the answer to that.
5
@BrianLG100 good to hear from you, your username sounds familiar and I think you and I may have corresponded in the past. Yes you are correct. There were several credible witness accounts which said that pyrotechnics had been used at The Station at least once prior to the night of the fire. According to one of the witness accounts that I read, there had been photos of pyrotechnics on the nightclub's website, which were abruptly taken down right after the fire. Regardless, Jeff Derderian knew about the danger of that soundproofing foam for 2+ years before the fire, and we know this because he once ran a news segment on it. This was an accident waiting to happen and the guy is a lying POS.
5
@pax6833 I read that there were one or two fire extinguishers stashed in a closet somewhere. But they were so old (from the days before the Derderians bought the building) that they had likely become depressurized and unusable. Regardless, very few of the nightclub staff would've even known they were there or had much time to run and grab them. You had 90 seconds to be out of the building or your chances of survival were almost nil. The owner you refer to (the one who grabbed foam from a dumpster) was actually Howard Julien. He was the previous owner before selling the building to the Derderians in early 2000. Julien put the polyethylene foam on the walls and ceilings. The Derderians are the ones who put the polyurethane egg-carton foam on top of that, creating what was later described as a "lethal sandwich" that caused the fire to become so fast and intense.
3
@SportsMusicCars I'm not certain but I don't believe his decision could've been overridden. As the fire marshal, he was the final authority. The buck stopped with him, so to speak. It's also possible that he knew what he was doing was dangerous and illegal, and took steps to cover it up. But that's pure speculation. I can tell you this much however - Larocque most certainly lied when he told investigators he never noticed the soundproofing foam on the wall. I say this because he had previously cited the Derderians for an inward-swinging door at the rear of the club and that door was covered in the foam. In order to have opened the door to test it, Larocque would've had to reach through a small hole in the foam to access the door handle/door knob, so I don't believe him for a second when he says he didn't notice it. Fire marshals are usually very detail-oriented. There is also evidence suggesting that Larocque not only noticed the foam but knew how lethal it was, and had warned the Derderians about it. I'll leave you with this food for thought... "Polyethylene foam - fire safety experts call this stuff 'liquid gasoline'" -Jeffrey Derderian, WHDH-TV (c. 2000)
3
@SportsMusicCars John Barylick addressed that question in his book Killer Show - it's a question other people have asked as well. The Rhode Island Attorney General's office never fully explained why they decided not to prosecute Larocque. However, Barylick has pointed out that Rhode Island law grants immunity from criminal prosecution to fire marshals for actions and omissions made in the “good faith performance of their duties". Thus, Barylick and other legal experts strongly believe that prosecutors were reluctant to indict Larocque for fear of having the case thrown out on a legal technicality. By the way, in addition to his failure to remove the foam and his illegally increasing the club's capacity, Larocque also failed to notice that the building's transition from a restaurant to a nightclub also removed its exemption from a law requiring a sprinkler system. Rhode Island law at the time contained a grandfather clause for restaurants built before a certain year, however that grandfather clause did not apply to nightclubs. So the building was in violation of the law by not having a sprinkler system on that night.
3
I agree using fireworks indoors is irresponsible, but without that polyurethane and polyethylene foam there's no way the building would've caught fire like that. Worst case, one or two people could've suffered some minor burns from the sparks.
3
@SportsMusicCars greed and selfishness were at the root of this (at least in the case of the Derderians).
2