Former owners of Waverly Hotel plead guilty to fire violations

The owners of the former Waverly Hotel in downtown Toronto have plead guilty to numerous fire code violations after inspections found a lack of working smoke alarms and emergency exits.

The violations were noted during fire inspections between 2013 and 2017. In a news release issued Thursday, Toronto fire said the violations “remained uncorrected for a number of months while the building continued to be occupied.”

“This building remained occupied throughout this entire period. The owners, for whatever reason, chose not to fix the violations, which really upped the ante for Toronto Fire so we had to implement alternative measures,” Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop told CP24.

The four-story building was located near Spadina Road and College Street. It held 63 rooms and a nightclub occupied the basement.

In 2015, the Ontario Municipal Board granted a proposal by the hotel’s owners to demolish the building and put up a 15-story mixed-use facility.

However, the building closed in 2017 after the city became aware of the fire code violations.

The fire violations included the absence of working smoke alarms, fire separations and the required number of exits, as well as excessive combustible material accumulated on the roof. Toronto fire also says that fire-rated doors would not close and latch, and that there were no records of tests for the fire alarm system.

Jessop said that Toronto fire issued numerous threats to life notices under the Fire Protection and Prevention Act and implemented “alternative measures,” which included going into the building to install working fire alarms and conducting weekly checks for more violations.

“Had there been a fire in this building, with these occupants, with these types of continued uncorrected violations, there’s no doubt in our mind, (there would) certainly be serious injuries, if not fatalities,” he said.

He said the violations were similar to the ones that caused the downtown Rupert Hotel fire in 1989, which claimed the lives of 10 people and left dozens homeless.

“It’s angering,” Jessop said to CTV News Toronto of the Waverly Hotel violations. “It was neglectful, negligent, and it was willing.”

Owner Jeffrey Wynn was fined $33,000 plus a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge and the building’s property company was also fined $153,500 in addition to a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge.

Money collected through the victim fine surcharge will go into a fund to support victims of crime.