Dad of Ghost Ship victim calls for easier permitting
SACRAMENTO — The father of a man killed in the Ghost Ship fire told state lawmakers Wednesday that stringent building and fire codes drive artist warehouse spaces underground, where they remain unpermitted and often unsafe.
Edwin Bernbaum said creative artists like his son, Jonathan, were drawn to the Ghost Ship, a converted warehouse in Oakland where 36 peo-
ple died in a Dec. 2 fire, because of a lack of affordable places to perform and live.
Bernbaum testified before the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, which had called an oversight hearing on how similar tragedies can be prevented. The lawmakers are reviewing existing laws to see if restrictions can be eased to encourage venues to get proper permits, while still maintaining safety.
Bernbaum said if nothing is done to ensure artists have affordable places to live and perform, they will be driven to makeshift, dangerous places.
“And eventually you will have another Ghost Ship and I think we can agree that is the last thing we want to see happen,” he said.
Jonathan Bernbaum, 34, was a video artist who performed around the world at electronic music shows. A Berkeley native and Oakland resident, he had gone to the Ghost Ship the night of Dec. 2 to support friends who were performing at a music show that was being held there.
Edwin Bernbaum said his son may have known about the safety issues at the Ghost Ship.
“Two years before, his older brother had been with one of these collectives and they had performed at the Ghost Ship and realized it was a very dangerous place,” Bernbaum told the lawmakers. “They decided to never come back. But, with soaring rents and costs, there were fewer and fewer places ... where they can perform and put on musical events where they developed new techniques. And so they gradually drifted back.”
On the night of the fire, many of the victims were trapped upstairs, where the show was being held. It was the deadliest structure fire in California in more than a century. The victims ranged in age from 17 to 61.
Lawmakers pushed building and safety officials at Wednesday’s hearing for suggestions on how to ensure similar buildings are safe without forcing tenants out on the streets.
Senate Governance and Finance Committee Chair Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said lawmakers will convene a working group to develop recommendations about potential changes to building, public safety and fire codes, and to look at what other cities and counties are doing that could be used as a model. Another hearing later this year will review the results of that work.
McGuire said lawmakers are already working on numerous affordable housing bills, which would address one of the reasons people were living at the Ghost Ship.
“There is a balance between bringing buildings out of the dark and bringing them into a regulating environment,” McGuire said. “The practical reality is that, because rents have soared so significantly, there are very few other dwellings that folks can turn to to live in.”
McGuire suggested the possibility of a statewide amnesty program that would allow building owners to come into compliance over a certain number of years.
Other lawmakers, including Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, said they were interested in possibly creating specific laws related to live-work warehouses similar to what historic buildings receive.
Oakland Firefighter Union President Lt. Dan Robertson, who spoke at the hearing, said he hoped to see more information-sharing through a centralized system so that local agencies can better communicate on issues like unpermitted living spaces.
Prior to the fire, city police officers had been told the Ghost Ship warehouse was illegally occupied and had responded to complaints about unpermitted “raves.” Building inspectors had also responded to complaints about the warehouse, which was a maze of makeshift stairs and sleeping areas. But Oakland’s fire chief, Teresa Deloach Reed, said days after the fire that her department was not aware that the Ghost Ship existed.
Deloach Reed was noticeably absent from the hearing, 3½ months after the fire prompted questions about management and inspection procedures in the fire department. She has been mostly out of the public view since facing criticism over how little the department knew about the Ghost Ship.
City leaders said Tuesday Deloach Reed will retire May 5.
Hundreds of city documents showed police were repeatedly called to the warehouse in the two years leading up to the fire for reports of thefts, fights, stabbings, guns and parties. There is no evidence that the city followed up on the safety and licensing issues.
An investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office to determine any criminal liability in the Ghost Ship fire is ongoing.