Code: Owner Of William St. Building Finally Responds, 2 Months After Fire

Eight weeks after a fire ripped through the William Street building he owns, a Port Chester landlord finally responded to village officials.

Anthony Tyrone acknowledged the fire and code violations two months after the fact via a fax sent to village hall on Thursday, according to Assistant Village Manager Christopher Steers.

The Jan. 10 blaze began with fume build-up from polyurethane rags left by a contractor in an illegal office loft, according to the Port Chester Fire Department. The official cause was spontanous combustion -- the rags sparked, catching on saw dust left on the loft's floor after the contractor used a commercial sander, fire Chief Kevin McFadden said the morning of the fire.

The resulting code investigation took a month and 200 man-hours, not counting emergency response and clean-up, according to Steers. When inspectors were finally confident they'd found every violation, their report listed 466 citations in a 59-page document.

Tyrone's realty company is registered in Kansas City, MO. Tyrone is accused of ignoring requests for a mandatory fire safety inspection. The village issued a notice of violation in April of 2011 after inspectors unsuccessfully tried to schedule a walk-through of the William Street property in January.

Cited violations in the building include building out 40 illegal office and tenant spaces over several years without Certificates of Occupancy. Inspectors also cataloged electrical problems and said the building lacked proper methods of egress.

Although code and building inspectors don't have the authority to evict tenants, some businesses may be forced to move or temporarily shut down "due to the fact that extensive work may be necessary to correct the violations, and several of the occupancies are going to require zoning approvals in order to stay," according to Steers.

Check back with Port Chester Patch for updates. For an index and archived stories on code enforcement efforts in Port Chester, visit the Port Chester Code Enforcement and Housing Safety topic page.

Follow Port Chester Patch!

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PortChesterPatch

Twitter: http://twitter.com/PChesterPatch