Broadway’s Joule building has already lost a tenant. A haunted house scheduled to open Thursday in the building at Broadway and Republican won’t be haunting Capitol Hill this year. According to an e-mail sent out by organizers including the Broadway Improvement Association and the Capitol Hill Chamber of commerce, Seattle fire officials have nixed their plans for Blood Manor, a haunted house promotion part of a slate of activities designed to bring more people to Broadway for Halloween weekend. The e-mail is below. We’ll check in on the situation and see what more we can add.
There’s a lot more going on around the Hill this weekend, of course. Check out our Capitol Hill Halloween spooktacular 2010 trick-or-treat guide and candy forecast map
Hello volunteers, friends, partners, sponsors, fans:
I am sorry to tell you that the Broadway BIA will not be hosting a haunted house on Broadway this Halloween season.
We were super excited about the opportunity to bring this event to the neighborhood and feel it would be a great thing for the merchants on Capitol Hill.
We moved full force ahead with promotion, artistic building of the Haunted House and permitting on a parallel track.
We felt that we had met all the hurdles of permitting for a special event that were laid out.
Unfortunately in the last 24 hours the Fire Department finally came to inspect the building and will not allow a Haunted House to continue.
Rather than a special event permit the house has been given the same designation as an amusement park.
There is no amount of time or money that could be spent to reach these requirements.
We are hoping that people will join us for the Procession of Lost Souls (pray for good weather) on Saturday night at 7 p.m. The Parade begins at SCC and heads north to Republican. Anybody can jump into this parade whether their on stilts or just wearing a witches hat.
We’ll have a Costume Contest at 6 p.m. prior to the Parade at SCC with a great group of judges from the Hill and great prizes.
Kids will have their own parade on Sunday at 3 p.m. at Cal Anderson Park and merchants on Broadway are ready for a host of trick-or-treaters.
Horror films will be playing on several store fronts, other store fronts have done macabre window displays.
Many of the merchants are making special drinks and foods to celebrate the season.
We hope you will still join us on Broadway for Halloween. We’re so sorry to report that Blood Manor has been taken off the list of seasonal fun.
Thanks Seattle fire dept for nothing. This event would have brought people and $$ to Broadway and area hurting already. But it’s more important to them to drive to this inspection in a big old gas guzzling fire truck like they probably did and then deem it an amusement park. It’s no Seattle Fun Forest so that designation seems incorrect. And then it seems they showed zero flexibility. How helpful!
It’s hard to get too concerned when the police and fire departments whine about needing more money when both departments already seem to have a bit too much time on their hands.
Safety first.
Even if we read about one less fire fatality, I’m all for them doing it and going by the rules.
It’s unfortunate this had to happen but i am almost certain that the fire department was none too thrilled to bring this news to the organizers. As a previous poster said, rules and procedures are there for a reason. Had the department ignored it and something horrible happened (remember the Road Island club deaths), everyone would be out to hang the fire department as well. Too bad. I was looking forward to taking my child. Im also pretty sure it was probably some guy from an office or something that made the decision based on established policies not the guys in the fire engine.
Nobody is going to care how much gas a fire truck guzzles when they need help. You won’t either. Quit whining.
The Broadway BIA and the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce completely agree that safety is the number one priority. It was our belief that we had followed all of the safety precautions set forth. We are disappointed that there won’t be a haunted house on Broadway and we’re sorry to disappoint the Capitol Hill community.
@eric
unfortunately you are basing your comment on just one side of the story provided via an email from the organizers of the haunted house. truth is you don’t know why the fire department would not allow the haunted house to continue; neither the email nor this post has that detail.
maybe they felt there weren’t enough exits should there be a fire. to your logic should they be flexible and say, “nah, fires never happen on halloween. we should bend the rules so $$ can come to broadway. who cares about the human costs!”?
there’s a reason why the fire department exists and their decisions are based on experience. if they say something’s unsafe, i’d rather it get shut down then someone get hurt or worse.
besides, do you really want a public safety department to be flexible on the level of safety the public can expect?
It would have been nice to have another event, but, let’s be fair, the weekend is HALLOWEEN to the max, event after event all weekend.
More fun than grade school and maybe something sweet along the way!!!
Next year, Michael.
( can you all say left over Red Dress costume with vampire face?)
Safety is, of course, the goal here. The criticism I think should be directed at the timeliness of the decision. I don’t know where to place the blame there, and I’m not familiar with the permitting process, but it seems very unfortunate that the “no” decision came down after a lot of planning and organizing had already taken place.
I’d be tempted to blame that on historically lethargic (not to mention one-size-fits-all) government processes, but who knows.
Sucks though, I was looking forward to going.
I was one of two designers for Blood Manor on Broadway that was supposed to happen. I’ll give you the whole story, but first let me say that nobody should be blaming anybody and nobody should be angry at the fire department.
There were two main issues the fire department had (and these were actual people who came into the space, not “some guy at a desk” as one poster presumed. And they weren’t in a fire truck!)
1. The walls of the actual haunted house were constructed from chain link fence draped with an outdoor mesh covering that you normally see at any construction site. Other, smaller portions of the design were covered with black plastic. Unbeknown to us and the producers of the project, was that we were not allowed to have any vertical structure that wasn’t completely fire proof. Since plastic and the mesh covering are not fire proof, those didn’t fly. This issue mostly likely could have been resolved by replacing the walls with a fire-proof materials. It would’ve been hard and taken a huge effort, but we were prepared to do it in the interest of making it happen. But, issue number two barred that from happening….
2. The building itself (the bottom floor of the apartment building) had certain features that any unused space has (exposed insulation, a junk pile from construction work, etc). Apparently all of these things are also fire hazards and we would have had to completely finish the interior of the building with sheet rock, exit signs and the like to meet the requirements. In the 30 hours we had until the house was supposed to open, we simply did not have the time or resources to go through that sort of remodel of the space.
In terms of the safety of the house, this was me and my co-designer’s main focus throughout the project. We had numerous emergency exits, everything was lit properly, and everything was carefully planned to ensure things ran smoothly and safely once we opened. In fact, the fire department didn’t have any big problems with our design, it was all about the building and the materials used.
Hopefully this quells any rumors floating around about lack of foresight or the fire department being evil. Everyone did their job as best we could and in the end, things just didn’t work out the way anyone hoped. My hope is that this doesn’t scare the community away from supporting a haunted house next year. I’m convinced that if we learn from this year’s experience, we can get next year’s up without a hitch.
It seems the fire departments are making things harder (much harder) to open local haunted houses today, why?? These people set up the most stupid rules for these haunted houses that nobody that has deep pockets can put on a local event anymore, this is sad! The first thing the Fire Department wants are full monitored fire alarm with pull stations throughout the house (yes lighted pull stations) which can be found, can you image how many times a joker would pull these stations i’n one night, costing the event a fire department response every time and hundreds of dollars worth of false alarm fees. Next, they want lighted visual exits throughout the event where people can exit, it is hard to make a fire exit door with a lighted “exit” sign look very scary! This also costing the event hundreds of dollars for an attraction which runs a few weeks or days! Next, fire escape routes which have to also be seen and marked throughout the attraction, yes visual signs posted on the walls throughout the attraction and need to be backlite or lighted in dark areas, usually a haunted house is dark isn’t it?? Best for last, now we come to fire escapes on all floors, so basement and upper levels would have to build a fire escape ladder or stairs to allow exit from the floors (this does make sense) however, the cost to build or construct some of these exits would quickly use up any yearly profits fast, average costs in the thousands. With all this, the fire departments also want emergency lights installed throughout the event, so come an emergency condition, all lights can be activated by a central switch. The lighting is also a good idea, but installing lamps throughout an attraction and central triggering on a relay is very expensive, thousands of more dollars invested and all these projects require building inspections and license people doing the work – thousands of dollars for a yearly attraction. Most of the haunted houses are built i’n low cost temporary buildings and constructed as cheap as possible, so who could or would invest thousands of dollars on a building which you might only use one year before it’s sold or unavailable next year? All this said, you understand what it’s like to build a haunted house with the Fire Inspectors looking down your throat and in your wallet with every move.
“It seems the fire departments are making things harder (much harder) to open local haunted houses today, why?? These people set up the most stupid rules for these haunted houses that nobody that has deep pockets can put on a local event anymore, this is sad!”
The law in Seattle that dictates fire safety requirements in haunted houses (actually in any occupied structure) is the Seattle Fire Code (SFC). That law is enacted by a vote of the City Council; the SFC itself is reviewed and modified by community, business, and fire department representatives. Why does the SFC have restrictions on lighting, exits, flammable materials on walls, and occupant loading restrictions? Probably to prevent things like this:
Note that 100 people were dead or dying within 2 minutes of the fire starting.