A top FDNY official said Monday that his department can’t support a proposed law requiring landlords to provide and maintain childproof knob covers on stoves because it would “very difficult” to enforce.
“If there was some kind of device that we could support that we can inspect, we’d have a different stance on it. But since we can’t get into these dwelling units and inspect them, it is very difficult for us to say ‘we are fully behind it,’” FDNY Chief of Operations John Sudnick said after a City Council hearing on new fire-safety regulations.
The eight bills Sudnick and other FDNY bills addressed were drafted in response to a Dec. 28 blaze in the Belmont section of the Bronx that killed 13 people, making it the city’s deadliest fire in more than a quarter century.
The fire was started by a three-year-old boy playing with a stove and spread after the frantic mother fled the building with her family without shutting the door.
Sudnick said the FDNY supports a bill drafted by Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) that would require doors in homes with multiple units be self-closing by the end of 2020.
Officials have said closing the door could have saved many of lives lost in the Bronx fire.
Sudnick also said the FDNY supports “the intent” of a bill that would require landlords to supply, install and maintain safety stove-knob covers – which cost about $5 to $10 — to tenants with children 10 or younger.
When asked later why the FDNY does not support the bill in full, Sudnick said it is not enforceable “from our perspective” and that, if anything, it might be “more of an … issue” for housing inspectors.
There were more than 15,000 reports to the FDNY of stove-related fires last year, and 17 involved unattended children.
The American Builders and Owners of Greater New York said in a statement that it opposes the safety-stove knob legislation because “owners cannot endlessly monitor and replace knob covers under tenant control…As with many baby-proofing devices, such as plastic outlet covers within an apartment, this is a parental responsibility, not a building owner’s.”