Oakland Warehouse Fire

Okay, I totally get the loss of life being devastating. It is. I feel for all of the families and friends of those who died in such a horrific manner.

But the assholes who created the firetrap were already blaming the landlord the morning after it. What the fuck?

Blame the landlord for the wiring - when you wired in your own stuff as part of your art? Blame the landlord for not having sprinklers when you're not allowed to build the shit you did in the warehouse?

All of those artists who contributed to the firetrap are to blame, they're not victims. Stupid waste of life because art is more important than using your damn brain while you're being creative.

 

I've been to warehouse parties, been there when other people have done burnouts inside them and all sorts of stupid - but knew where the exits were and where the fire extinguishers were (if a bike was running). Maybe it was dad/grandpa or Boy Scouts but paying attention to that stuff has always been part of how I think.

Hell, even wiring things up before I knew what I was doing I still paid attention to potential shorts and overloading circuits and so on. Granted, still didn't stop an electrical fire in my bedroom as a teen but I didn't rewire the wall fixtures. That was done when they were converted from gas probably early 1900's.

 

Are you talking about the actual property owner or the space owner? I think they are two different people. I'll have to hit up the googles.

Saw something on the talking face box about people doing this because of high rents in the Bay Area - my question is why do they stay there? If you're a struggling artist then struggle where it's cheaper... They also can't be too struggling, I can't afford that many tattoos...

 

Okay - property owner is Chor Ng. The main guy in this Ghost Ship thing is Derick Almena - he's labeled the owner of the collective (um, huh??) and the manager of the space, evidently he was subletting it to the people living there. Making some money from it too, one thing I read talked about $700/mo rent, another said 15 tenants and he was only paying 5k/mo to rent the warehouse so $5500 cash right there other than utilities which were supposedly sporadic anyway (power and water got shut off regularly). Evidently they had RV's inside the first floor along with all sorts of other crap and then a pallet staircase to the second where concerts happened - with no means of exit other than the pile of bonfire fuel.

The one dude I saw running his mouth was some sort of assistant manager or the like. He was bitching about how the actual property owner wouldn't do things for him and the manager (meaning Almena) - the whole time I'm wondering if he understood they were renting a warehouse not already built loft apartments. EIther way he was definitely looking to blame the actual property owner for their misuse of the property.

 

After hitting the googles I can see why the confusion. He owned the commune and sublet it out so he was the landlord to a bunch of people and the owner of the cult but not the property owner. Who it seems he lied to regularly about it only being art space and no one living there.

I did see another article saying the rent was 3-600/month not the 700 I originally posted. He did make money on renting it out for concerts like the one they had the night of the fire. Also a number of complaints from former tenants about giving money for improvements to him then nothing was done.

 

Absolutely guarantee people will sue her. However not sure if they should be able to. Especially if the lease Almena signed specifically says no subletting. Either way he is the one who broke the zoning regs for the property. Also curious what recourse the owner has to inspect the property in Cali, I know a lot of places the owner can't check on things without a lot of lead time notification - so there's no way the owner could know people are living there.

 

Agreed - especially if even one of the people talking to reporters about issues they raised with him is telling the truth and willing to testify to that. Ultimately it strikes me as being his fault.

I'm not getting the other supposed artist excusing him because of high rent, what a shit excuse for illegally modifying a warehouse and making it a deathtrap.