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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Retail Store Expansion and Restaurant Exit by Washrooms

I visited a veterinary pharmacy today which I have been to many times before.  It has recently expanded so changed some usage of the customer doors on the south wall.  A few secondary glass/aluminum doors have been blocked off and the main door is now a sliding pair.  However, this door had a rolling shutter installed outside.  It does not have an exit sign over it and rightly so.

As I stood at the till, I was thinking of the only other door I saw which was a signed exit.  There was a exit device installed EO near the SE corner of the building but I could not see it from where I stood.  I took a stoll and found signs pointing to an exit within receiving on the NE corner.  I could not see the inside of the door to evaluate its effectiveness.  However, this store is now huge and the only exits are crowded to one end. My gut reaction is that many areas of the shopping floor are well in excess of allowed travel to an exit and unless you walked to the horse supply area you can not see an EXIT sign from most of the store.

I guess the story here is that there is nothing to photograph.  I know that is poor for a blog but what can I do?

After work, I went for supper and did find something to photograph.  Ta da!
The signed fire exit from the hall by the washrooms to the office tower lobby.

And a detail of the locking hardware applied with thru-bolts over the push plate.

Here is a case where a plan to open a restaurant has run gotten ahead of itself. They built the restaurant area and lounge area on either side of a common hall with the washrooms.  However, a trip to the washrooms seems to have been a good time to skip on the bill and so it was locked up.  I can see the cash flow problem.  However, this is not acceptable in the least.

Do you have a solution for the owner which could make this door code compliant and eliminate or reduce deadbeat customers?  (I can not photo the whole place but a better job of planning the site would have solved this too but that option has passed.)