Alleged fire code violations before Mount Pleasant apartment fire
Posted August 2, 2023 9:13 pm.
Last Updated August 2, 2023 9:39 pm.
Days after a fire destroyed a Mount Pleasant apartment building — displacing more than 70 people — CityNews has learned the building’s owners were accused of violating multiple fire codes in 2022.
According to land title documents, the owners of the building are Fu Ren and Feng Yan. Court documents show Vancouver Fire Rescue Services accused them of violating 20 fire safety-related by-laws in November 2022 — including failure to maintain fire extinguishers, fire doors, and the fire alarm system.
The fire, at the building at East 10th Avenue and Prince Edward Street, broke out on the evening of July 27, and while no residents were hurt, some had to be rescued off balconies, and one firefighter was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Some firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion.
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CityNews spoke to a number of residents on Wednesday, who say they’re not surprised by the alleged bylaw violations.
“There’s no sprinklers, there was one fire extinguisher on the first floor that was expired, he bolted down the fire doors in the parkade so if anyone was down there, no body could get out, it just wasn’t safe,” said Taylor Calhoun.
Calhoun says it also took about a month and a half for someone to fix a broken fire alarm in her hallway. She notes she lived in the building despite the ongoing issues because her unit, which cost $1,500 a month, was affordable.
Calhoun says because of the fire, no one lives in the building anymore. She says all the tenants should be getting their damage deposits back.
On Wednesday, outside the apartment building, Calhoun confronted her landlord about her damage deposit.
“You didn’t answer, you read it… and you don’t answer… you say nothing about damage deposit, you just say about my insurance,” she said to her landlord.
“We get written off that this building is welfare, drug addicts, blah, blah, blah, but it’s just not. A lot of us are either elderly or in our early 20s, 30s, just looking to not pay $3,000 to live in Mount Pleasant,” she said.
Calhoun says she’s found a new place to live in.
Tenants Gerson Estrada and Diana Mendeza had happened to find a new place to live just before the fire.
Since many of their belongings have now been destroyed, they have little to move.
“We saw the new apartment empty. There is just a mattress on the floor. It’s kinda hard, like what are we gonna do now?” said Estrada.
He says they weren’t surprised to hear about the alleged bylaw violations either, saying firefighters came to the building regularly because of false fire alarms.
“Every time that these alarms sound, the firefighters arrived and they checked everything. I don’t know why they never do anything about the situation,” Estrada added.
Those who haven’t found a new place to live are currently staying at a local hotel. The City of Vancouver says it’s been providing Emergency Support Services funded by the province.
CityNews asked the landlord about the alleged by-law violations when he showed up at the building.
He disputed them, saying he didn’t understand why they were issued in May instead of November — which is when Vancouver Fire Rescue Services alleges the violations were observed.
For now, it isn’t clear whether the alleged issues were ever fixed.
CityNews asked Vancouver Fire Rescue Services why they weren’t issued until May, but it said it couldn’t comment as the matter is before the courts.
In a statement the day after the fire, the service says it was going to be reviewing the history of previous incidents and fire inspections at the building.
The initial cause of the fire also remains unclear.
