Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney recently signed into law a bill requiring nightclubs with occupancies of 100 to install sprinklers within the next three years. Clubs with occupancy levels less than 100 must also install sprinklers if cited for occupancy violations twice in one year, the Associated Press reports.
Also under the law, criminal penalties were established for blocking exits or entrances, failing to maintain fire safety systems, storing flammables or explosives, and using polytechnics without permits.
Inspired by Rhode Island’s The Station nightclub, where a fire killed 100 in 2003, Romney signed the legislation at the former site of Boston’s Cocoanut Grove, a nightclub where 492 people died in 1942 in the worst nightclub fire in U.S. history.
