Beijing Boyce

A bar manager told me last weekend the fire safety crackdown that closed Tongli Studio bars, including his, came after two people died in a karaoke fire in Beijing. I couldn’t find any news about this fire on the Internet, until now, thanks to Paul “The Spark” Pennay, who sent me this story from Reuters (based on a Xinhua article):

The fire department inspected 182 hotels, restaurants, discos, karaoke bars and bathhouses in the eastern Chaoyang district and closed 33 for failing fire safety standards after a fire last week at an unlicensed karaoke bar killed two staff.

This isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, such crackdown in Beijing. For sheer size, there was this 2002 China-wide crackdown, shortly after 25 people died in a Beijing Internet cafe fire:

…more than 6,200 illegal public entertainment venues - such as karaoke bars, discos and video arcades - have been shut down. Another 111,183 venues were shut down temporarily until fire-prevention measures are taken.

Beijing immediately banned the city’s 2,400 Internet cafes, the mayor reported as saying only those that passed fire and safety inspections could reopen.

Bar owners would do well to get their places up to snuff. Not only is it their obligation to customers, but this city is not going to take any chance of a bar full of Olympics tourists goes up in flames in 2008. Nor should they. Tragedy such as the two deaths last week in Chaoyang Park should be prevented.