Had a peculiar situation at our office. We normally pay our security/fire safety firm to come do an annual inspection, swap/top off our fire extinguishers, etc. It's been this way for more than 10 years. We've never seen a fire marshal or any representative of the fire department come out.
Today, a fire marshal came and inspected our facility just to "make sure that our fire safety company was doing their job", checked the place, and charged us a 45 dollar fee. Not a fine. A fee. He stated that they "used to do it for free" but now they're charging for it. It seems wrong to be doing this with no notice and then charging the business. I'm all for raising revenue, and sure it's just 45 bucks. But that's just seems shady JFRD. To not see anyone for 10 years, then randomly get an inspection because they can start charging for it? What gives?
It's also worth noting that he appears to be going down the street to every place on the block.
This was the exact same practice that the fire marshal did a a while back when he visited only the nightclubs, I mean all the nightclubs, in Jacksonville and had them all shut down for "code violations". Be careful. Someone is up to no good again.
Until then, tell them you will not pay them for unexpected visits.
I thought so, luckily we're up to snuff with proper signage and a fire plan. So it wasn't that big of an issue. I'm not even the owner of the business. But my boss said he kinda felt like he just got mugged, the inspector wasn't even here for 10 minutes. 45 bucks for 10 minutes worth of work? That's my kinda gig!
We've had this twice in the last couple of years. On both businesses. No advanced warning and they just show up. Thankfully, the person doing it was great and there were no issues even when in one case, we had something that needed corrected. We simply did it and sent her a note saying it was done.
While it may be a pain to be charged like this, for many small businesses, there are no checks at all so it is a good thing in the end. I do think though that if you can show a regular inspection by the state (like for state held licenses) or by a contracted company, they should not charge for their check up. Those of us with a state license pay dearly for the multiple inspections we have to have as it is.
And, of course, like anything else, it can be taken advantage of to cause problems. You do have to know as much as they do (or more) or you could be on the way to larger issues. We got told we had to do certain things once and I got to quote the law and stop the nonsense. If I hadn't known what my rights were, I could have easily been convinced to spend thousands for no reason other than the fire marshal thought I should.
It isn't like that for just the fire marshal, but for all city codes and issues.
They barged into my office on Wednesday demanding to see the fire extinguishers and inspect the sprinklers, and bill us for the inspection. The receptionist told him to get out, since we rent the office space and the landlord is responsible for all that. He then said OK and left.
Edited to update:
We since got a $45 bill in the mail for this non-inspection, and I wrote back, saying that we're not responsible for any of the items they were inspecting, and so I'm not paying it. They responded with a collection notice. Unbelievable.
Chris, You should have sent him directly to George for the money. I would have paid to be a fly on the wall for that encounter.