Wait till the government runs health care.

cause there was a fire... tickets galore... over reacting to a unfortunate situation poor building owners...response to complaints about graffiti, litter, scraggly weeds and other problems.lol yeah those are things that are really bad... do we even know the cause of the fire?

Maybe, the city can't afford to have enough fire Inspectors because of all of Pawlenty's CUTS TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT'S, look at the problem, there might not even be one!!!!

Before the second guessing starts, the investigation should start with the City Council. An examination of the budget for the inspection staff should determine if the Inspectors have the staff and funding to do a professional job. Operational government , for the most part is rarely given the tools to do what the public expects.

Good advice! The fire may not have anything to do with the building. It has already been stated that it did not start in the bar. .......... I was a regular at the old Poodle Bar. A bit of history. The Poodle used to be at least 75% smokers. Business was hit hard by the March 2005 Minneapolis smoking ban. The BUSINESS was sold to a new owner who didn't know the bar business. It mercifully closed and repened as a remodeled McMahons. Nice but a bit upscale for me. ......... The code violations seem mostly minor since it became McMahons. The heat complaint in an apartment is an example. The building had hot water radiators. Air from water tends to get in the top floor radiators. The fix is simple. Make sure the system is full of water and "bleed" the radiators. ...... Suffice it to say that bedbugs don't start fires.

Sure the government didn't inspect the place, but it seems the free market is what allowed for the landlord to not have working fire alarms. So which is it you want? Government inspections or free market. I'll take government inspections, even if not perfect, over free market for safety issues any day.

Pawlenty has been in office the last 16 years? I didn't realize. What does this have to do with health care? Not much except for pointing out the inadequacies of government to manage anything of importance.

And most of the people working for the government are exactly like the St Paul city workers making $30 an hour+ benefits doing about $1 an hour worth of work. Good luck with all that. If it were all privatized, people would be held responsible, why doesn't anybody realize that? Stupid sheep...........Just wait until the cuts to local gov't include your health care, DUH! But I suppose YOUR answer would be more taxes on us working folk. Liberals are communists.

The fire started on the second floor. The bar fire alarm (downstairs) hadn't been TESTED in a year but the owner got a call that the alarm went off so it apparently worked. There are logs of this. Food burned while cooking set off the upstairs fire alarms two days before so it is a claim that the alarms didn't work, not proof. ......Are you one of those city council members spouting off without considering the facts?

And how many buildings are there to inspect, and what is a proper inspection frequency, and how much do inspectors get paid?