(Image via KATU)
When I saw Willamette Week’s report that a fire marshal – Doug Jones – was accused of furnishing a local sex club with special treatment, I quickly snickered at the thought the it might be the same fire marshal shutting down hip-hop shows.
Well irony won the day as – guess what? – it is. Now the infamous rap show capacity-slasher (remember Kelly’s Olympian?) is in hot water with the city council and the OLCC. The Fire Bureau has been exceedingly hush on the issue. According to WW writer Nigel Jaquiss:
“The fire bureau refused multiple requests to make Chief Erin Janssens available for questions and declined to provide WW with a photograph of Jones, although city employee photos are public records. City Fire Marshal Nate Takara declined to comment. Jones declined to explain his actions. ‘There are a lot of pieces to this,‘ Jones tells WW. ‘We are trying to resolve issues with this business.‘”
On Wednesday night though, Erin Janssens spoke up and said nothing, as has become the thing for government officials to do when their offices are caught looking mighty suspect. “PF&R is fully cooperative and supportive of this investigation. Unfortunately, we’re unable to comment further until the process is complete,” was the statement made by the Fire Bureau Chief.
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman has committed to launch an investigation to find out why the assistant fire marshal gave the club a (faulty) tip on how to skirt fire code violations, and subsequently drove 29 miles from his house on his night off to overrule perfectly valid citations levied against Ron Jeremy’s Club Sesso.