Stronger fire safety needed for Hongdae nightclubs

Clubbers line up outside a nightclub near Hongik University, March 29, 2018. / Korea Times photo by Lee Suh-yoon

By Lee Suh-yoon

A false fire alarm at a nightclub in western Seoul has exposed its lack of preparedness for possible disasters.

On Feb. 11, the fire alarm went off at a nightclub called Hive, near Hongik University in western Seoul; but it turned out to be a false alarm.

However, the police found the exits were cluttered with boxes blocking evacuation routes.

Experts say such fire safety violations are common at the area's 40 clubs.

“This is a big social problem because it could raise the death toll. Further inspection is needed,” said Choi Jun-ho, a professor of firefighting engineering at Pukyong National University.

“I've visited clubs two to three times in the past for research. I found fire extinguishers were hidden in order to keep them out of sight from drunken clubbers who might break them,” Choi said.

The police cannot detect such violations unless they are called in to investigate cases involving bar fights, sexual harassment or fire-related accidents.

Also, there are not enough inspectors to inspect such clubs.

The Mapo-gu fire department is in charge of monitoring over 10,000 buildings but it only has eight inspectors.

To this end, they are only able to conduct two mandatory inspections a year.

“We put together five inspection teams for overnight operations. Each team must inspect eight clubs,” said Lee Hae-young, head of the prevention and inspection team at the Mapo fire station.

“Once each group inspects their first site, news starts to spread, giving other clubs enough time to cover up their faults.”

The last inspection took place last July.

Nightclubs caught with a violation face fines of up to millions of wons. This is considered low for big nightclubs.

The problem extends beyond Mapo-gu.

Fire safety checks are mostly managed through a self-reporting system instead of direct inspections by authorities.

“This is not a trustworthy system as seen in the recent fire accidents at Miryang and Jecheon,” Lee said.

Another problem is the fire safety standards for nightclubs in this neighborhood are weak.

The government identifies them as restaurants rather than dark, confined spaces where hundreds could get trapped.

Most of Mapo-gu is designated as residential.

This makes it difficult for club owners to receive permits to operate entertainment businesses.

Nightclubs, instead, operate on restaurant permits. This enables them to pay lower taxes.

As nightclubs increased in the area and became its main tourist attraction, the district created a special rule allowing them to operate legally, even with restaurant permits.

In 2015, Mapo-gu Office categorized such nightclubs as “restaurants that allow dancing activities in seated areas.”

But this is still inadequate.

Currently, the legally required number of exits for nightclubs is just two.

Since most clubs are underground, their exits are often long narrow staircases that can create a “bottleneck” during evacuations.

Experts say there are no fire safety regulations specifying the number or width of exits based on the expected number of people inside the buildings.

“There are academic studies that look at how the number and width of exits affects a crowd's flow rate out of a building in emergency situations,” Choi said.

“The results of these studies, however, have not been implemented into building regulations.”

Kang Aa-young and Cho Se-yong contributed reporting.