Ban on BBQs and Christmas trees delayed

120-day postponement a chance to 're-address the issue,' experts say

The prospect of a summer without barbecues and Christmas without a tree has been delayed for countless families, businesses and institutions throughout the state.

The Washington State Building Code Council, which had initially announced a ban on open-flame barbecues on certain residential decks and another on live cut Christmas trees in a variety of buildings, has decided to delay a final decision on both counts.

The ban was meant to be part of an effort by the building code council to update its codes to be in accordance to the International Fire Code.

Moses Lake Fire Marshall Brett Bastian said that apartment owners had been given a heads-up about the impending ban, but that this past week, the State Building Code Council had announced a change of plans.

Bastian said that what he had seen from the rule-making order was an emergency extension of 120 days on the issue, effectively keeping it from becoming a law until then.

"It gives them time to re-address the issue," he said. "It is certainly going to be unpopular with the public."

It is not going to be easy on the fire department, either, Bastian said, given that the MLFD does not have the staffing to police people who have barbecues on decks without sprinklers or live Christmas trees in buildings where they are forbidden.

The ban on barbecues, had it been put in place at the first of next month as it was planned, would include residential buildings with more than three family units, therefore excluding duplexes and single-family units. It would exclude first-floor units, as well.

"If you have a sprinklered balcony, you can have one," Bastian said, regardless of its location.

The ban on live Christmas trees runs along similar lines, with the trees forbidden on sprinkler-less assembly occupancies, such as theaters, auditoriums and restaurants; institutional occupancies such as nursing homes and hospitals; mercantile occupancies including stores, but excluding offices, as well as buildings of three or more family units.

State Sen. Joyce Mulliken, R-Ephrata, said she was happy the State Building Code Council had decided to review their earlier ban, adding that the voice of the public had certainly been a factor on their double take.

Rich Cole, from the Moses Lake Department of Planning and Building agreed, saying that the delayed implementation of these sections of the code had been in part to public pressure, specifically from apartment owners.

Tonya Dudman, manager of Weston Square Apartments in Moses Lake, said that owners of propane barbecue grills will most likely be unhappy if the ban were to be enforced.

Dudman said that she believed an increase in fires due to negligence in the use of barbecue grills had likely been a factor in the decision to ban.

"People said, 'maybe this is not a safe way to barbecue,' she said, adding that she has not passed out the notices indicating the now-delayed ban.

Regarding the trees, the economy of the state had been a factor in the delay, as well, Mulliken said, given that the state of Washington is one of the top producers of live Christmas trees.

"To ban live cut trees from many different places," she said, "I think they (SBCC) overstepped their bounds, and they understand that."

Bastian said that under-watered Christmas trees may become a fire hazard, and that in buildings where fire protection is below standards, safety outweighs the Christmas issue, as he put it.

Although trees that are properly watered can be relatively safe, Bastian said, there is so much potential for them to become a safety issue, that he would agree to a ban on certain occupancy types. He did emphasize that that was his opinion and not that of the MLFD.

Mulliken warned that the discussion was not over, and that a decision will be made at the end of the year on whether to rewrite, adapt or exclude the ban from the code. She said she hoped the SBCC would take the discussion to a legislative level if they chose to adopt it, and if they did not, that they still would include the legislators in a public discussion.

Bastian said that if the bans were to be adapted by the state, the fire department would have to enforce them as strongly as the state would.

"It's a different issue for us to enforce," he said. "It requires getting into occupancies that are people's homes and we don't like to do that. But if the state adapts it, we have no choice."

He added that if the MLFD has enforce the issue under the letter of law, an infraction becomes a criminal violation. This means they would have to make a mandatory court appearance, and pay fines of up to $1,000.