A fire had broken out on the fifth floor of the People's Park Complex building on April 21. -- ST PHOTO: DAMIAN TAN
A CARPARK operator was fined a total of $60,000 on Tuesday on two counts of fire safety infringements which were uncovered after a fire at People's Park Complex.
District Judge Ch'ng Lye Beng imposed the maximum fines on Grand City Investment, whose representative pleaded guilty to creating 20 rooms over its car parking lots on the fifth-storey level of the multi-storey carpark without approval. The maximum fine is $50,000.
The second charge was for the change of use of the approved car parking lots into 20 rooms which the company had rented out for storage purposes.
As a result, this made existing fire safety provision inadequate; posed a potential fire threat to its occupants and neighbouring properties; as well as making it difficult for fire fighters to 'contain'' the April 21 blaze.
Defence lawyer Eric Chew said in mitigation that the offences were committed inadvertently. When his client bought the premises in 2004, the structures were already there and the seller had also provided a warranty that it had not erected any unauthorised structures.
Pressing for a deterrent sentence, Major Azmi Adam said the structures erected had caused part of the multi-storey carpark's ventilation openings to be covered and impeded the natural flow of smoke. He said there was no sprinklers system, which had resulted in the fire to grow and spread unchecked before the arrival of the fire-fighters from Singapore Civil Defence Force.
