CODE LEGAL DOES NOT MEAN SAFE!

 

Code-legal isn’t the same as safe: what the Value Lodge fire exposed in Nanaimo

A resident wakes up, can’t breathe, and almost goes back to sleep.

That detail should stop everyone cold — because it tells you something uncomfortable: in a building full of sleeping people, survival may have hinged on one person waking up and physically alerting others.

Whatever the final cause turns out to be, the life-safety picture we already have is enough to raise a serious public question:

Even if a building is “compliant,” is it adequately protected — especially when it’s functioning as de-facto long-term housing?

What we now know 

Nanaimo Fire Rescue has confirmed the following about the Value Lodge:

• No building-wide fire alarm system (no panel, pull stations, horn/strobes).

• No sprinkler system.

• The most recent fire inspection was March 2025.

Those are straightforward facts. And they matter, because they shape what “early warning” and “time to escape” looks like in the real world at 3 a.m.

The compliance trap: “Built to the code of the day”

A common reply from authorities in situations like this is: “The building was built to the code in place at the time, and it remains compliant unless major alterations trigger upgrades.”

And that is largely how the system works.

B.C. has stated plainly that building codes and sprinkler standards apply at the time of construction and do not apply retroactively to require owners to upgrade existing buildings. (BC Gov News) This is why older, low-rise buildings can legally remain in service without sprinklers or a modern building-wide alarm system.

But here’s the problem:

“Not retroactive” may be administratively convenient — but it creates a safety gap when an older building becomes a high-occupancy, high-risk sleeping environment.

Smoke alarms: mandatory — but what kind, and for whom?

The Province’s fire safety guidance says smoke alarms are mandatory under the BC Fire Code, including hotels and motels, and it also notes that many dwellings constructed after the late-1970s code changes require alarms that are wired and interconnected. (Province of British Columbia)

That’s the public expectation most people now carry in their heads:

If there’s smoke in one part of the building, everybody hears it.

But the code world is not always that simple — and it often draws hard lines between “a dwelling unit,” “a suite,” and “a guest room.” It even allows some alarms/detectors to be localized within suites and “need not sound throughout the rest of the building” in certain configurations. (free.bcpublications.ca)

So the first and most important unresolved question at the Value Lodge becomes:

Were the smoke alarms inside rooms interconnected in any way — or were they isolated, room-by-room devices?

Because if they were isolated, then the “design” of early warning looks like this:

• Smoke builds in one unit

• The only people alerted are the people already inside that unit

• Everyone else keeps sleeping unless they’re woken by noise, smell, or a neighbor pounding on doors

That’s not “tinfoil hat.” That’s just how sleeping humans and smoke work.

Basement-suite comparison

Most Nanaimo homeowners understand the secondary-suite standard intuitively: when you add a suite, the City’s own guide emphasizes interconnected smoke alarms within a dwelling unit. (Nanaimo) And in some secondary-suite scenarios, the Building Code also contemplates additional interconnected alarms across suites unless certain separation/sprinkler conditions exist. (free.bcpublications.ca)

So here’s the public question Nanaimo should be allowed to ask without being brushed off:

If we expect interconnection and layered protection when a homeowner builds a basement suite… why is it acceptable for a multi-room lodging building full of sleeping people to operate with no building-wide alarm and no sprinklers?

Even if the technical answers live inside code classifications, the common-sense question remains valid.

The de-facto housing issue: “transient” on paper, “permanent” in reality

This is where the Value Lodge story becomes bigger than one fire.

A motel designed for short stays can become long-term housing by default — and when that happens, the risk profile changes:

• People accumulate belongings

• Rooms become lived-in “units,” not temporary stopovers

• Cooking behavior changes — and it’s predictable

If a room has a microwave and mini-fridge, the “next step” is not theoretical. People add hot plates, toaster ovens, air fryers, kettles — even unsafe fuel-burning devices if they’re desperate. That’s what long-term living looks like when the building wasn’t designed for it.

And cooking creates a second problem: nuisance alarms. Municipal fire safety materials have openly noted that alarms with removable batteries can be disabled during cooking. 

So the spiral is obvious:

1. Long-term residents cook more

2. Alarms sound more often

3. People silence/disable alarms

4. Real fires become harder to detect early

5. Survivability depends on someone being awake and alert

If the Value Lodge was operating as de-facto housing, then “motel rules” may be an inadequate safety model — even if technically compliant.

This is the core argument

Let’s say the building was compliant in March 2025.

That still leaves Nanaimo with a clear public-interest conclusion:

Compliance can coexist with inadequate protection.

A building can meet minimum standards on paper and still be dangerous at 3 a.m. in the real world — especially when it houses dozens of people sleeping behind closed doors, without sprinklers and without a building-wide alarm.

What Nanaimo should demand next (without waiting years)

This is not about blaming a specific owner, tenant, or firefighter. It’s about tightening the gap between “minimum compliance” and “acceptable safety” in buildings where people sleep.

Here are the reasonable, non-speculative next steps:

1. Public disclosure standard for sleeping occupancies
   For motels/hotels and similar high-occupancy sleeping buildings: publish basic life-safety facts in plain language:

   • sprinklers: yes/no

   • building-wide fire alarm: yes/no

   • smoke alarm interconnection: yes/no (or “unknown”)

   • most recent inspection month/year

2. Treat de-facto housing as higher risk
   If dozens of people are living month-to-month, inspection frequency should reflect the reality, not the label. (If the fire department’s position is that nothing changes whether nightly or month-to-month, that policy itself deserves public debate.)

3. Close the retrofit gap for high-risk buildings
   The Province has acknowledged the non-retroactive nature of code. (BC Gov News)
   But where older buildings function as long-term housing, Nanaimo should push for a provincial framework that triggers upgrades based on risk, not only renovations.

4. Cooking reality: regulate it honestly
   Either buildings must provide safe cooking options (and meet the standards that come with that), or they must enforce and monitor no-cooking rules in a way that doesn’t devolve into “everyone does it quietly.”

The line Nanaimo shouldn’t cross

No one should accept a safety model where:

55 rooms of sleeping people rely on one person waking up at the right moment.

That isn’t “resilience.” That’s luck. 

The question now is simple:

Are we satisfied with code-minimum — or do we want sleeping people to have modern, layered protection that doesn’t depend on heroism?