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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

We could relax rules so that the authorities have more options than evict or ignore. If the fire dept or police had the option of simply directing that the tenant would have to keep X number of extinguishers for every X number of people, and had to make sure ample easily accessed exits were clear in case of fire, the problem could have at least been thoughtfully approached.

Too many of our codes are starkly black and white.

Yes, who needs a fire code when you can just have a simple occupant to fire extinguisher ratio? Freeing people to innovate by, e.g., experimenting with flammable exterior cladding seems just the way to avoid a future Grenfell Tower situation.

It doesn't surprise me that there were Oakland employees who knew there were problems and didn't do anything. I suspect it was because (a) it wasn't their job, and (b) Oakland is not going to win any Municipal Government Competence contests, not even in the rarely competitive Post-Industrial Wastelands, Mid-Sized Cities division. I saw this as someone who is quite fond of Oakland. Oakland city cops are generally too busy clubbing protesters or abusing victims of sexual violence to enforce building codes.