Call For New Sprinkler Legislation After Trump Tower Fire
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The head of the City Council Housing and Buildings Committee is expected to call for new fire sprinkler legislation Monday following a deadly weekend fire at Trump Tower.
Todd Brassner, 67, died at a hospital on Saturday after a fire ripped through his apartment in the high-rise, which opened in 1983 at a time when building codes did not require the residential section to have sprinklers.
The city passed a law requiring sprinkler systems in new residential high-rises in 1999. The legislation would require high-rises built before that year to be retro-fitted with sprinklers.
The city's Department of Buildings on Sunday said Trump Tower did have working hard-wired smoke detectors, and that the fire department was first notified of the blaze by the detectors in the building's heating and ventilation system.
Brassner was a close friend of pop art icon Andy Warhol and sold Warhol's art. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)