Code enforcement debated, smoke detectors praised

If you missed any portion of it, yesterday was unofficially Fire Safety Day at City Hall, as Council members extolled the $5 smoke detector in the morning, then held a special Council meeting, two hours before the regular one, to talk code enforcement.

The impetus for all this, of course, was the tragic deaths of Long Beach sisters Stephanie Aviles, 6, Jocelin Aviles, 7, and Jasmine Aviles, 10, following a fire early Friday in their illegally-converted garage home.

But as the Press-Telegram’s Greg Mellen reports, the forces which led to the Aviles sisters’ deaths can’t be wiped out in a single meeting. Sometimes, it’s very difficult to cite illegally-converted properties.

“Inspectors are limited to what they observe from streets and alleys,” Dennis Thys, the city’s community development director, said in the P-T. “If a door is closed and we can’t see in it, it makes it hard to do code enforcement.”

And poverty is an endemic problem; an estimated 20 percent of Long Beach residents are below the federal poverty line.

“I face these tragedies every dumb day,” Amelia Nieto, the head of Centro Shalom, a Long Beach social services provider, is quoted as saying in the P-T. “I don’t want to see staff write another report that is received and filed, I don’t want another citizen’s advisory committee.

“Nobody chooses to live in a garage. Nobody. You guys on the City Council, you have no idea what the residents of Long Beach are living with.”

Tags: , Amelia Nieto, California, Centro Shalom, code enforcement, Dennis Thys, fire safety, Greg Mellen, Jasmine Aviles, Jocelin Aviles, Long Beach, Long Beach City Council, press telegram, smoke detectors, Southern California, Stephanie Aviles, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas