Landlord in fatal rooming-house fire fined $92K

A Calgary man who owned the rooming house where two tenants died in a fire has been fined $92,500 for violating health and safety codes.

Darrell Wright and Rock Mitchell died in the blaze on July 31, 2008, while five others escaped unharmed from the northwest house, where the windows were nailed shut and smoke detectors were missing.

On Friday, Yan Teng Li, 42, who owned the three-storey house in Tuxedo Park, was fined $17,250 for 19 violations of the Public Health Act and $75,000 for five violations of the Safety Codes Act.

In assessing the maximum fine allowed for the fire code infractions, provincial court Judge Barb Veldhuis said Li's "degree of negligence was high and the resulting risks were highly foreseeable."

Investigators believe an electrical overload sparked the fire in the illegal rooming house, which was zoned for a single-family dwelling but held eight individual suites, each with its own appliances.

The judge called the house "blatantly unsafe with digusting living conditions."

'Unless you can chew through eight inches of concrete, you're dead.' —Robert O'Neill, prosecutor

Veldhuis dismissed the defence argument that Li had no idea the house was improperly zoned. Since Li was capable of doing his own taxes, the judge also doubted he was "naive." She believed the landlord was simply "indifferent."

The judge also pointed out it would have cost $200 for smoke detectors and $210 to buy three fire extinguishers.

Lawyers for the City of Calgary had fought for the harsh $92,500 penalty to send a message to landlords who violate provincial and municipal laws. Fines should not be considered a cost of doing business, the city said.

"On this case, I didn't think it required jail time, but I think the judge made a very good point that it was close. It was bordering on the point where the windows had been nailed shut," said prosecutor Robert O'Neill.

Warning cry to all landlords

"This case should be … a warning scream to every landlord and every property manager in this province that you need to go and check your bedrooms of your rental properties to make sure you've got proper bedroom windows for emergency egress."

O'Neill said he has seen properties with no bedroom windows at all.

"If that's the case, then if there's a fire, and the fire's already spread to the hallway because it's the middle of the night, unless you can chew through eight inches of concrete, you're dead. So No. 1 there has to be a bedroom window."

O'Neill reminded people that bedroom windows have to have an "openable area" of 3.8 square feet and cannot be obstructed by things like security bars that don't swing open easily.

Deputy fire chief Brad Lorne said the department hopes all housing owners take note of Friday's judgment.

"Anybody in the business of housing people — whether that's secondary suites, apartments, rooming houses or in the business or renting a suite — they must meet minimum [fire] code," he said.

Li must pay $17,250 by the end of this month, and the remainder is due by Aug. 31, 2011.

The fine is one of the highest levied in a city case. In November 2009, the landlords of a Calgary rental home where three people died in a basement fire were fined $89,700 for violating several safety and public health laws.