The director of supportive housing for the non-profit that operated the Winters Hotel said Tuesday he “didn’t realize how dangerous” the building was prior to the fatal fire that razed it on April 11, 2022.
Chauncey Carr of Atira Property Management made the comments “in hindsight” at a B.C. coroner’s inquest into the deaths of Mary Ann Garlow, 63, and Dennis James Guay, 53, whose remains were found in the wreckage of the downtown SRO 11 days after the fire.
“It’s a 113-year-old building. By modern standards, I don’t know if those plans would have ever been approved with the open-atrium style, with the building materials that were used,” Carr told the inquest jury in Burnaby.
“These older buildings, if we’re going to put people into them, hopefully, it is only temporary and we are able to build more purpose-built homes.”
Tuesday is the seventh day of witness testimony in the three-week inquest, which has so far heard from victims’ families, Atira staff, Vancouver Fire Rescue Services (VFRS) officials and more. VFRS officials have previously said unattended candles were the cause of the fire.
Carr testified there were multiple challenges to health and safety at the Winters Hotel, including hoarding in the hallways, break-ins, people entering and exiting through the fire escape, and security alarms that had not been replaced prior to the fatal fire, because Atira’s supplier couldn’t find the required parts.
Two people — a tenant’s relative and a neighbouring business owner — previously told the inquest jury of a chained door or fire exit at the building on Water and Abbott streets. While Winters Hotel manager Gina Vanemberg has testified she’s never seen such an obstruction, Carr told the jury that he had and took the necessary steps to have the chain removed.
The inquest has heard that prior to the April 11 fire, the Winters Hotel had a history of non-compliance with fire safety rules.
Cliff Lee, a Vancouver fire captain who works in prevention and urban compliance, testified Monday that repeat violations required him to issue multiple notices and tickets for the building. In April and June of 2021, in particular, he said the Winters Hotel had “unsatisfactory” inspection results.
On Tuesday, the City of Vancouver’s head of property use inspection said he visited the SRO in October that year. Mark McLellan testified that it had 18 life-safety violations, including missing smoke detectors, items hanging off the sprinkler lines, and non-operational fire door closures.
Carr, the supportive housing director, said he would do monthly walkthroughs of the Winters Hotel with manager Vanemberg. While Carr said he would always check to ensure the fire extinguishers were in place, both he and Vanemberg testified there were no regular fire drills in the building.
Both told the jury that a “red book” containing fire safety procedures was kept in the SRO, although Vanemberg said that when she was hired, no one from Atira went through it with her or confirmed that she had read it.
She testified last week that the building’s tenants were not informed of a fire watch that was put on the building three days before the fatal fire, and that there was no rule requiring it. Carr said the general practice for a fire watch would be to inform tenants, but not to put up posters on the walls to notify them.
The three-day period leading up to the fire has been heavily examined during the inquest.
On April 8, 2022, the Winters Hotel’s sprinklers extinguished a smaller fire. After that incident, VFRS issued a notice of violation to Atira to have the fire safety systems serviced and the sprinklers reset, and to put the building under a fire watch until that work was complete.
Vanemberg testified that she didn’t call the only approved company she could to get that work done — Royal City Fire Supplies — right away because it was a Friday evening and she thought she would just receive an automated message telling her she would receive a response on Monday.
Global News called Royal City Fire Supplies, and was told that the company would indeed respond to a weekend call for service, but it would cost a premium rate. Vanemberg told the inquest that staff had been instructed not to use companies that would charge overtime, or any companies not on the approved list.
Vanemberg had said the servicing was scheduled to take place on the Monday, but the deadly fire broke out before that happened. As a result, the sprinklers did not go off on April 11.
Official VFRS records show the fire alarms didn’t go off either, but evidence presented at the inquest last week has raised the possibility that they did.
Testimony in the inquest is set to continue until Thursday. Jurors will not make a determination of fault, but will document the facts related to Garlow’s and Guay’s deaths, including the causes and circumstances.
Both of their families have attended the inquest, at times, sitting in tears.
Garlow and Guay have both been described as kind souls who gave their time to others. Garlow was considered a mother figure to many living in the Downtown Eastside, while Guay was known as a storyteller and music lover.
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