Sprinkler fitter Derek Swanson, with Mission Fire Sprinkler LLC, installs a sprinkler head in the Strauss Building which is being renovated to be a restaurant in downtown Chattanooga.The city could shut down dozens of local businesses at the end of 2012, including the Station House restaurant at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, if owners do not install costly sprinkler systems, according to a new code the City Council is considering.
The rule change, backed by Chattanooga Fire Marshal James Whitmire, requires that existing sports bars, restaurants with live entertainment, dance halls, discotheques, nightclubs and “assembly occupancies with festival seating” install sprinkler systems. The cost is $2 to $12 per square foot, or an average of $50,000 to $70,000 per business with an occupancy over 100, officials say.
The City Council on Tuesday night deferred action on the code for two weeks to allow the city attorney’s office time to set a definition of “nightclubs” affected by the ordinance.
Matt Lewis, co-owner of the new Honest Pint on Patten Parkway, said he would have canceled plans to open the restaurant if he, rather than the owner, had been forced to pay for the Honest Pint’s $60,000 sprinkler installation.
“We would have walked away if they had made us do that,” he said.