Who was responsible for inspecting the Harborside Inn? Fallout from fire exposes gaps

NEW SHOREHAM – Mark Jones was aghast to learn in the aftermath of the Aug. 18 fire that destroyed the Harborside Inn that the fire-suppression systems in two of his businesses were faulty, despite being marked as compliant by a fire inspector.

Jones has operated the Mohegan Café for the last four years and owns Old Harbor View Takeout, a popular eatery overlooking the ferry landing.

“To my disbelief," Jones said Thursday, in the takeout restaurant "they found that the ancillary tank to put out a fire was not even connected to the piping.”

Nonetheless, Jones said, the system was tagged as compliant by Peter Freund, owner of Emergency Services of New England LLC.

“He put the public and many people’s lives at risk,” Jones said.

The state on Friday revoked Freund’s license following his disclosure to officials investigating the Harborside Inn fire that he marked the system as compliant despite being aware that the components were not rated to work together, according to a report from the state fire marshal's office released Sept. 22. The system failed to activate during the blaze.

“Nothing was correctly inspected. Nothing was correctly tagged. The fire marshal shut me down,” said Jones, who managed to upgrade the system at the Mohegan Café in time for Labor Day weekend.

Jones called for an investigation into all inspections and tags by Freund, who he said was operating as a “one-man show” doing inspections on the island for the last 20 years.

“He was a very, very busy man on the island. Mike [Finnimore], just like everybody else, put his faith in the guy,” Jones said. Finnimore is a co-owner of the Harborside Inn and has an ownership interest in the building that houses the Mohegan.

Freund also acknowledged to state fire officials that he tagged non-compliant systems in the kitchens at Club Soda and Mohegan Café, both of which were shut down Aug. 31 following inspections by the Office of the State Fire Marshal. Club Soda’s kitchen remains closed.

Freund, of East Hampton, Connecticut, did not return a phone call Thursday.

Who was responsible for inspecting the Harborside?

The Harborside Inn, as well as its restaurant and bar, the Harbor Grill, had not been inspected by the state fire marshal's office since at least 2019, according to Matthew Touchette, spokesman for Rhode Island Commerce's Department of Business Regulation.

Typically, mandatory fire safety inspections are carried out by the local fire marshal. However, when towns lack their own fire marshals, the state fire marshal’s office will step in.

In a December interview with The Providence Journal for a story on fire safety inspections, state Fire Marshal Timothy McLaughlin indicated that his office was handling all inspections on Block Island.

"We'll go over at the beginning of April when they start to open, and we'll go through every single bar," he said at the time. "We've got the whole island, so we've got the dormitories where they keep their employees, the employee housing, every bar, every restaurant, marinas ..."

In a subsequent interview in February, McLaughlin said there might have been “lax” enforcement on Block Island in the past. He said the town previously had its own part-time fire marshal who worked with state inspectors, “and it just didn’t work out, so now we’re the authority having jurisdiction over there.”

“The last few years, we’ve really tightened it up over there,” he said at the time.

More: Block Island could have been 'the next Lahaina' during hotel fire. How downtown was saved.

No requirement to inspect hotels on an annual basis

The gap in inspections exposes a loophole in state law: There’s nothing saying that hotels have to undergo fire-safety inspections on a regular basis.

Bars and restaurants with liquor licenses are supposed to be inspected every year as a condition of renewing those licenses. Ever since the Station nightclub fire in 2003, that’s been a top priority.

Hotels have to submit reports on a quarterly basis showing that their fire alarms and sprinklers have been tested. But there’s nothing dictating how often inspectors need to physically set foot in the building.

Earlier this year, some local fire marshals told The Providence Journal that, because of a lack of manpower, hotel inspections tend to fall by the wayside. Unless issues arise, inspectors may only conduct a walk-through every five or six years, Bob Dufault of the Newport Fire Department said at the time.

Town wants to be 'kept in the loop' on investigation

Earlier this week, the New Shoreham Town Council called a meeting to discuss whether the town should ask Attorney General Peter Neronha to investigate "what appears to have been a failure in fire inspection and fire prevention protocols at the Harborside Inn on Block Island."

The attorney general's office told The Providence Journal on Wednesday that they had already joined the investigation, so at Thursday's meeting, council members agreed to draft a letter asking that the town be kept apprised of any developments.

"Keep us in the loop," Councilwoman Martha Ball said. "We don’t want to be reading about it in the paper."

The council also discussed taking a look at the town's ordinances for gasoline storage in the future.

Elizabeth Noonan, a lawyer with Adler, Pollock & Sheehan who is representing the owner of the Harborside, said that nothing in the state fire marshal's report indicated that gasoline was involved in the fire. She said gasoline was being stored nearby for refilling mopeds, not in the restaurant or the hotel.

"It's not that anyone is doing anything wrong, necessarily," First Warden Keith Stover said. "We're talking about moving forward."

Freund’s license

According to Touchette, commerce spokesman, Freund was previously licensed with the state but his license expired in 2010.

The state Department of Business Regulation learned he was conducting unlicensed inspections in March 2021 and notified him that he would need to retake the required exam if he wanted to continue, Touchette said. Freund passed the exam, paid the fees and regained his license that same year.

“We don’t know what businesses have his tags. There’s no way of knowing,” Touchette said.

Rhode Island is a fair chance state, meaning people can obtain occupational licenses despite being previously convicted, Touchette said.

Federal records in Connecticut indicate that Freund, then the owner of the fire-safety firm AAA Fire & Safety, pleaded guilty to fraud in 2000, admitting that he represented to customers that he was testing fire extinguishers, when he in fact failed to do so, federal prosecutors said. He would stamp the extinguishers as certified and then bill customers. He was sentenced to serve four months in prison.

Federal authorities also accused Freund in 2013 of failing to pay his income taxes in a case that ended with a judicial sale, court records show.

Passed in 2020, the state's fair chance law bars state agencies from disqualifying a person from obtaining an occupational license unless a crime or prior conviction "substantially relate to the occupation to which the license applies."

To determine if a conviction substantially relates to the occupation, the agency can consider factors such as whether the person has been rehabilitated or if sufficient time has passed as well as the state’s "legitimate interest in protecting the property and the safety and welfare of the public."

The Office of the State Fire Marshal is asking the owners or managers of any business who knows or has a record that Freund, of Emergency Services of New England LLC, conducted an inspection at their premises to please contact their local fire marshal.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Harborside Inn fire exposes gaps in inspections on Block Island