| Set the House Ablaze |
24 February 2003
|
97 Concertgoers Die for Small Business
Great White are a third-rate metal band from a long-time ago whose careers now consist of playing small clubs, not because they want to, but because they can't play anywhere bigger. So, they deal with small club owners who look forward to decent sales at the bar, and compose the whiny class of entrepreneurs who believe that every rules exists to rob them of the sweat of their brow. Between desperate has-beens and small business greed-mongers, another 97 have been killed in a nightclub fire.
Lawyers and PR people will make a great deal of money trying to convince the public and the eventual jury that either the clubowners or the band should bear the blame for the fire in Rhode Island that was caused by "pyrotechnics" (i.e., fireworks) being used indoors. There is enough blame to go around. The band (who appear to have lost a member in the fire) may have used the effects without permission and contrary to fire regulations. The owners appear not to have had a sprinkler system in the building, since the law did not require one.
However it works out, the fact remains that negligence by someone resulted in the deaths of almost 100 people. Negligence, though, implies that no one was thinking about their actions; yet one may argue that the parties involved had thought about the pyrotechnics, about how it would make the show look more exciting, get the crowd going, spin off a few more dollars. At Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl or Wembley Arena, it might have worked. At a glorified bar in Smalltown, USA, it only brought grief.