Grill ban goes into effect with new year

Reporting violations

Eve Tolefree, a division chief for Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical, said her department would enforce the new ban on grills on a complaint basis.

To lodge a complaint, call the department’s main number, 830-7000, and a fire inspector will be sent to the location.

If a violation is found, the occupant or landlord will have a chance to correct the situation. If the problem isn’t corrected, the occupant could face a $100 to $200 fine.

Another early-winter fantasy squashed.

Lawrence apartment dwellers no longer can help cure their cabin fever blues by dreaming of the warm summer day when brats and burgers and the whiff of hickory charcoal take their places on a patio grill.

Come Tuesday, Lawrence’s new fire code will prohibit the use of gas and charcoal grills on all wooden decks attached to apartment buildings. The code also will prohibit the use of the grills on concrete patios if there is a wooden deck directly above the patio.

“It’s a good change,” said Eve Tolefree, a division chief for Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical. “Use of a gas or charcoal grill on an apartment balcony can put the entire building and all the people inside it at risk.”

The practice of banning grills is becoming more common because the prohibition is now standard language in the International Fire Code. Any city that adopts the International Fire Code will have the ban, unless the city takes specific action to remove the provision from their local codes.

The prohibition does not apply to grill usage at single-family homes or duplexes. Apartment complexes that have a fire sprinkler system that extends out over balconies and patios also are exempt from the prohibition. That may create a situation where new apartment complexes can allow the grills while many older ones can’t. That’s because the new fire codes also will require for the first time that all apartment buildings of three units or more be built with a sprinkler system. Existing apartment complexes won’t be required to retrofit sprinkler systems into their buildings.

As previously reported, city commissioners discussed the grill ban in March and approved the new fire code in September, both times receiving little opposition from the public.

One fine point of the law, however, is that it is not illegal for an apartment dweller to store a charcoal grill on a deck or patio. That provision is in there to allow apartment dwellers to use their grills in an apartment complex yard – at least 10 feet away from the building – if the landlord doesn’t prohibit it. It is against the new code, however, to even store a gas grill on an apartment deck or patio.

Swimming fees, bus fares also increasing

Fees for swimming and fares for riding the city’s public transit system will increase on Tuesday.

Daily admission fees for the city’s Indoor Aquatic Center – and the Outdoor Aquatic Center when it reopens this summer – will increase to $4 for adults 18 to 59 years old, and $3 for youths 5 to 17 years old and seniors over the age of 60.

The fees are an increase from the $3.75 rate previously charged to adults, the $2.50 rate for teens and senior citizens, and the $1.75 rate for children.

Fares for the T, the city’s public transit service, are set to increase to $1 per ride, up from the current rate of 75 cents. Fares for the city’s paratransit service – which provides door-to-door service for people who qualify – will increase to $2, up from $1.50 currently.

City commissioners approved both sets of fee increases in August as part of the 2008 budget process. Commissioners approved the increases because they said they were needed to help pay rising operational costs for both services.