“Boate Kiss” and Brazilian Public Policy

In the classic Hollywood film “Casablanca,” the character Vichy Captain Louis Renault (played by Claude Rains) is given a directive from his Nazi overseers to find an excuse to shut down "Rick's Café Américain" run by Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick Blaine. Captain Renault announces, “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here.” Immediately after this announcement, Rick’s croupier hands Renault a stack of money: “Your winnings, sir.” As this scene demonstrates, the character of Captain Renault is designed to epitomize hypocrisy and bureaucracy as a condemnation of the collaboratist Vichy régime.

In the early morning hours of January 27, 2013, a fire broke out in the nightclub “Kiss” in the southern Brazilian town of Santa Maria. The death toll was 242, with another 116 injured, many of them seriously. Almost every victim was in their late teens or early twenties. The deaths resulted from horribly inadequate infrastructure, including a single entry/exit point, no emergency exits and barred windows that condemned many of the youth to a charred death in the restrooms as they tried to flee the inferno. The tragedy affected every family in this town of 262,000 inhabitants, and traumatized the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Repercussions rippled throughout the country. It was the third largest number of deaths in a nightclub in world history, and was eerily similar to the 2003 fire in the Station nightclub in Rhode Island in which 100 people died, and the República Cromañón nightclub fire in Buenos Aires that killed 194 people in 2004. In all three cases, indoor pyrotechnics, over-crowding, and inadequate evacuation escalated the loss.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, local and state governments quickly raised the alarm about public safety in bars, nightclubs, and similar venues. Government officials were shocked, shocked to find that the vast majority of these establishments were functioning without conforming to fire and public safety codes. In the state capital of Porto Alegre, approximately 46 out of 50 registered night spots were shut down in the weeks after the fire due to noncompliance with the codes governing the operation of public establishments. In Santa Maria it was discovered that Fire officials knew of the noncompliance at “Kiss” yet for some reason the venue not only remained open but was allowed to regularly host musical acts that included indoor pyrotechnics. The venue’s official capacity was 691 persons, yet normally – and on the night of the tragedy – between 1,000 and 1,500 people were admitted.

While there was clear negligence on the part of the establishment’s owners, the greater breakdown was on the part of Brazil’s de facto public policy that accepts legal infractions as regular practice. Public officials in Santa Maria were aware of the overcrowding; some officials’ own children frequented the trendy club, and some died. Fire officials were aware of the bolted emergency exits, barred windows, and restricted main entry. From July 31, 2009, until the night of the fire, the nightclub operated continually under improper conditions, yet public officials never fully enforced regulations. The club was even ordered shut down, but the order was never carried out. Instead, the establishment was fined four times. The amount of the fines obviously was all but meaningless in face of the huge profits, another element in the inadequacy of public policy. For such measures to be effective, the value must be significant enough to deter infraction and not simply a small part of the cost of doing business. Similarly, there must be real enforcement of regulations, especially in areas of public safety.

Today marks the four-month anniversary of the tragedy. In this time, many actions have been taken at the local, state and national levels. Major reviews of operating licenses have revealed similar defects throughout the country; in the city of Rio de Janeiro, for example, only 5% of the 209 registered nightclubs conformed to fire safety codes. Commissions, investigations, and hearings have emerged across Brazil. Yet all of this will be meaningless unless followed by an actual change in how the people and the government perceive and act on issues of public safety. Conditions at the “Boate Kiss” were no secret, yet for three and a half years government officials allowed the nightclub to operate as a deathtrap.