Friday, Aug. 27, 1999 | 11:24 a.m.
The Joint inside the Hard Rock has apologized for overcrowding its venue for last Saturday's Tom Petty concert but the Clark County Fire Department has not yet determined whether to penalize the resort.
The Petty show drew 1,786 fans for a venue that is only permitted to hold 1,400 people, fire department spokesman Bob Leinbach said Thursday. That made the room 27 percent over capacity.
"They admitted they made a mistake and said it will not happen again," Leinbach said.
Room capacities are typically posted at places such as concert venues, restaurants and bars after they have been approved by fire and building departments. They are based on fire code formulas that take the size and nature of the business into account.
Violations are considered misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Fire departments often conduct spot inspections as well as regular reviews of events they know will produce crowds.
But Leinbach said he could not recall the last time the county cited a business for overcrowding. Tim Szymanski, spokesman for the Las Vegas Fire Department, said it has been at least three years since the city issued such a citation. Instead, they and deputy city fire marshal Jeff Donahue said the fire departments prefer to work with the businesses to correct the problems.
"It's better that we resolve the problem by showing them how to get it corrected than by taking them to court," Donahue said.
Sun music critic Geoff Carter wrote about the overcrowding in his review of the Petty concert. New Jersey resident Andrea Rotondo, a former editor of Musician magazine, responded by e-mail that she enjoyed Petty's performance but complained that the crowd situation was a "mess."
"When the doors opened, it was like going whitewater rafting," Rotondo wrote. "I was just pushed into the theater."
Though she secured a spot to stand near the stage, Rotondo said the crowd continued to push into her at least an hour before the concert began.
"Around us fights were erupting and tensions were running high," she wrote. "It was a dangerous situation that luckily didn't turn disastrous. By the end of the show, many of us up front were feeling pretty ill. Later, back at my hotel the paramedics were dispatched to my room where they treated me for heat exhaustion and dehydration.
"I have never been to a show that was so poorly managed as this one."
Hard Rock spokeswoman Tanya Huisenfeldt declined comment.
A county fire inspector ironically entered the Joint for Saturday's concert but left the venue before it became overcrowded, Leinbach said.
There are circumstances where posted room capacities may be exceeded, but only when the business gets permission from the fire department. Showrooms and bars, for instance, are often able to legally exceed their posted capacities when they clear their rooms of tables and chairs.
Donahue and Szymanski said that in recent years the city has had to bust up a few private "rave" parties conducted by youngsters in rented warehouses because of overcrowding. But no citations were issued in those circumstances.
"Our first interest is life safety," Szymanski said. He added that "if people are willing to work with us to reduce the hazard," they will not be cited.
If businesses are overcrowded, the proprietors are usually told by fire inspectors that they may not accept additional customers until others have left. A spokeswoman for Club Utopia on the Las Vegas Strip, for example, said that her establishment has often had a waiting line of up to three hours in order not to exceed the 2,000-person capacity inside.
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