WEST WARWICK, R.I. - The stage door exit, swathed from top to bottom in flammable gray foam, was a problem. And with daylight streaming through the garden windows of the rock 'n' roll roadhouse on Cowesett Avenue, the town's inspector spotted it easily.
The door swung inward, he said, a clear violation of a fire code crafted to ensure that patrons running from flames can swiftly escape.
If the nightclub, The Station, wanted to keep its liquor license, the inspector ruled last November, the door had to be fixed.
Not a word about the foam.
It was a familiar warning - and oversight. Inspectors had raised red flags about the offending door the year before and the year before that. Each time, the foam, on the door and across the stage wall, went unmentioned. Each time, the club satisfied official concern with a strikingly cavalier solution.
The Station's manager simply took the door off its hinges, stowed it in a nearby dressing room, and waited for approval when the inspector returned. Then, the manager said, he'd put the offending door back up.
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