It was a relief to hear that the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA) is willing to work with small theaters and live music venues to ensure they meet safety regulations instead of just closing them down because it turns out they do not meet fire codes.
The safety of audiences, performers and technical crews has to be paramount, but much of the council’s highly touted three-month safety inspection campaign appeared to be a public relations effort after the Greater Taichung nightclub fire in March that killed nine people and injured 12.
Local fire departments also launched safety checks after the blaze. The Taipei Fire Department, for example, found almost 12 percent of the pubs, KTVs and dance clubs it inspected did not meet fire safety standards. The establishments were fined and told to bring themselves up to code within a set time frame.
However, the CCA seemed shocked that Taipei mainstays such as the Crown Theater, the Guling Street Theatre and the music mecca that is Witch House might not be operating legally — but these places did not just suddenly appear. The Crown began operations in the late 1980s and Guling has been around much longer. Both have provided much-needed performance space for fledgling dance and avant-garde theater groups. Witch House may be younger, but it is old enough to be considered the birthplace of several careers. It makes one wonder if council officials actually go to see many — or any — of the events and groups they promote.
If problems exist, they have been overlooked for years. In some cases, the venues have been around longer than the regulations that are meant to oversee them and it appears no effort was made to ensure compliance. It was a reminder of how shocked officials appeared — and not just officials from the council — after Cloud Gate Dance Theatre’s studio-warehouse in Bali (八里), in what is now New Taipei City (新北市), was almost completely destroyed in a pre-dawn blaze sparked by an electrical short circuit on Feb. 11, 2008. It turned out that, technically, the studio was an illegal building, and officials seemed more embarrassed that the world now knew one of the nation’s most famous cultural icons had been surviving, if not thriving, in a makeshift, sheet-metal warehouse since 1992.
The CCA has been left looking like many other government agencies that promise crackdowns and launch campaigns in the wake of disaster and then let things slide back to “normal” once the media spotlight shifts to a newer crisis. One pundit dubbed the mentality “Taiwan’s disaster ferris wheel” — with the same wheel of apologies, excuses and promises of reform sent spinning after each disaster.
Think of the outcry after a wave of MTV and KTV fires in the early 1990s, like the 1992 Shin Hwa KTV fire that killed 16 people. Inspections conducted under the public spotlight found many of these establishments — most set up by converting two or three adjoining apartments or offices — had blocked windows, highly flammable interior designs, limited sprinkler systems and inaccessible fire escapes. However, they also had large electric signs advertising their location and entryways filled with cover art from scores of videos. They weren’t hiding their presence, yet officialdom was shocked at their existence.
Then there was the 1997 Lincoln Mansions disaster that killed 28 and exposed flaws in the oversight of the construction industry — flaws that were highlighted once again in the 921 Earthquake, when shoddily built highrises and schools collapsed or were severely damaged. Officials expressed horror — but how much has really changed since then?
It is time to stop the disaster ferris wheel and the official and public complacency that has allowed it to exist for too long. Fire safety efforts, just like construction safety, should be an ongoing operation, not a public relations effort aimed at ameliorating the public’s distress over needless deaths.
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