Acting Atlantic City Fire Chief "very concerned" about Revel

The owner of Revel Casino Hotel violated fire code when he dismissed the property’s team of engineers and left the Boardwalk complex a soaring fire trap, Atlantic City’s acting fire chief said Wednesday.

A violation notice was delivered to the property Wednesday, acting Fire Chief Scott Evans said. The city will begin fining Glenn Straub’s Polo North Country Club Inc. if the company doesn’t obtain competent engineers today to oversee the property's emergency equipment, Evans said.

“We’re very concerned. As the time goes by and there’s nobody in that building, the risk increases,” he said.

The city says Revel’s fire-command center, from which a host of emergency equipment is controlled, was left without a qualified operator after Straub decided Tuesday to stop employing nine union engineers at the property.

Now there’s no competent person overseeing Revel’s fire sprinklers, fire alarms, smoke-evacuation equipment and emergency elevators, Evans said.

Straub said Wednesday that engineering giant Siemens is training replacement engineers to oversee the 6.2 million-square-foot campus. He said the union engineers, from Local 68 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, were overpaid, adding: “We’ll go ahead and do the job with outside contractors.”

Evans called the decision “borderline reckless.”

“It’s the second-tallest building in the state of New Jersey and one of the largest on the East Coast. To train someone in several hours to be able to operate the life-safety (system), it’s just not possible,” he said.

Siemens, Evans said, told the city that it will take 30-60 days to properly train new engineers.

The life-safety system has been a steady source of controversy at Revel ever since Polo North bought the property for $82 million in April.

The entire complex was without power for nearly three weeks after its sole source of electricity, ACR Energy Partners, cut power April 9 over a fee dispute.

ACR, which runs a power plant across the street from Revel, began providing limited electricity to the property April 29 under a two-week agreement between the companies. The state Department of Community Affairs intervened in May, ordering the companies to keep Revel's emergency equipment powered for the sake of public safety.

Straub now claims he’s close to securing an alternate route to powering the resort, and says he’ll soon jettison ACR entirely.

Source: Atlantic City Press