175 A.D. 526 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1916
The relator is one of the owners of the premises known as Ho. 16 West Fifty-seventh street, in the borough of Manhattan, city of Hew York, occupied as a factory. On February 16, 1916, the deputy fire commissioner of the city of Hew York (duly authorized to make such orders by the fire commissioner) issued an order requiring the owners of said premises, within thirty days, among other things, to “provide an enclosure of approved fire retarding material around the light shaft at west side of building leading from 2nd story to roof. Plans and specifications in duplicate showing all proposed alterations
The commissioner claimed the power to make the order in question under the provisions of the Code of Ordinances of the city of New York, chapter 12, article 2, section 20, reading as follows:
``§ 20. Fire-alarm and fire-extinguishing appliances.—
“ The owners and proprietors of all manufactories, hotels, tenement-houses, apartment houses, office buildings, boarding and lodging-houses, warehouses, stores and offices, theatres and music halls, and the authorities or persons having charge of all hospitals and asylums, and of the public schools and other public buildings, churches and other places where large numbers of persons are congregated for purposes of worship, instruction or amusement, shall provide such means of communicating alarms of fire, accident or danger to the police and fire departments, respectively, as the fire commissioner or the police commissioner may prescribe, and shall also provide such fire hose, fire extinguishers, buckets, axes, fire hooks, fire doors and other means of preventing and extinguishing fires as the fire commissioner may direct.” (Cosby’s Code Ord. [Anno. 1915], p. 222, § 20.)
It is not necessary to review the history of sections 774 and 775 of the Greater New York charter (Laws of 1901, chap. 466, added by Laws of 1911, chap. 899, as amd. by Laws of 1913, chap. 695, and Laws of 1914, chap. 459),
In Lantry v. Hoffman (55 Misc. Rep. 261; affd. on opinion below, 124 App. Div. 937) the court, construing section 762 of the Greater New York charter (Laws of 1897, chap. 378), giving the fire commissioner power to direct the installation of “fire hose, fire extinguishers, buckets, axes, fire hooks, fire doors and other means of preventing and extinguishing fires ” (language identical with that of the present ordinance), held that the com
The order appealed from is, therefore, affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, upon the ground "that the fire commissioner had no power, under the law, to make the order in question.
Clarke, P. J., Laughlin, Page and Davis, JJ., concurred.
Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.
Since amd. by Laws of 1916, chap. 503.—[Rep.