N.J. firehouses re-evaluate drinking policies

By Ed Beeson and Tom Meagher
Herald News
Copyright 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.,
All Rights Reserved

GARFIELD, N.J. — The sun was setting as slabs of meat hit the grill and cans of soda popped open.

It was an impromptu barbecue last Thursday night at the West Paterson firehouse on Rifle Camp Road, thrown together with one firefighter’s text message to the rest of Company 3. Service members arrived, hauling folding tables, boxes of burgers and bags of buns, while their children played in the immense driveway.

The only thing missing, it seemed, was the alcohol. Two lonely bottles of Brooklyn Lager chilled in a cooler filled with canned colas and iced tea.

Such is life at firehouses these days, the volunteers who gathered here said. The brews don’t flow as freely anymore.

“I just wish the public would get it out of their heads: Drunken volunteer firefighters,” said Doug Ward, 32, who has spent about a decade in the West Paterson volunteer fire services.

Still, many volunteer firehouses are outfitted with bars and an unspoken blessing to serve alcohol to volunteers. Even in firehouses that don’t store alcohol on site, like those in West Paterson, it is still permissible for members to drink on premises.

The presence of alcohol in firehouses, as well as alcohol use by volunteers, came under scrutiny last week after a Garfield firefighter was charged with drunken driving one week after he wrecked his car while racing to a fire call at a local senior center. Volunteer firefighter Radoslaw Polanski, 23, was critically injured in the July 20 car wreck, and he remained Sunday at Hackensack University Medical Center in critical condition.

In light of that accident, and subsequent media coverage of Garfield Fire Chief Ed Ortyl and firefighters drinking beer and smoking cigarettes inside the Gaston Avenue firehouse where Polanski was stationed, City Manager Thomas J. Duch temporarily banned alcohol from the city’s firehouses. The ban will remain in place, Duch said, until the city can formulate a comprehensive policy on alcohol in the firehouse. Current law simply bars volunteers from responding to incidents while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“I’m not saying they should all be prohibited,” Duch said of the firehouse bars. But “the policy we have maybe isn’t enough. Maybe it should be amended or updated.”

Policies vary
City officials generally allow fire chiefs to set their own alcohol policy for volunteer firefighters. The understanding is that while volunteers can use certain areas of firehouse to drink and socialize, they are not supposed to respond to calls if they have been drinking.

For years, this system has been effectively self-policed, local fire and municipal officials said. That’s because, when it comes down to it, the policy boils down to a single piece of common sense: “Alcohol and a 70,000-pound, half-a-million dollar truck doesn’t mix,” Ernie Berthold, 40, of Clifton, a West Paterson volunteer, said.

North Haledon Mayor Randy George said he has seen the self-policing in action.

“I’ve been at the firehouses and people have been drinking,” he said. “A fire call comes in and those people do not even attempt to get on the truck.”

“The guys who are drinking soda or working on the equipment, they run the fire call,” George continued.

The fact that municipalities allow alcohol to be consumed in firehouses, when it is barred from most other government buildings, highlights the unique status that the volunteer corps has in the eyes of the law.

“The second they put on their gear, they are a town employee,” said George Fournier, a correspondent with the 1st Responder Newspaper. “But the second they take off their gear, they are not, even though they are standing in the exact same spot.”

The rule of municipal governments over their firehouses varies from town to town.

Some firehouses, like those in Lodi, are owned by the municipality, while others, like those in West Paterson, are owned by the fire companies that operate them, according to officials from both boroughs. Some towns own some of their firehouses, but not all of them.

This means that some firehouses are considered public entities, such as post offices, while others are considered private, like an Elks Lodge.

Yet most, if not all, volunteer firehouses are allowed to serve alcohol, even if most are not licensed to do so. “Some municipalities do issue club licenses to their firehouses, but there is a legal question if that is required,” said Drew Pavlica, Garfield’s city clerk.

Albert Buglione, West Paterson’s borough attorney, said he believes many firehouses have liquor licenses but they have been grandfathered in. They have been there so long that no one questions it.

The state Alcoholic Beverage Control board requires firehouses to secure licenses only when they sell alcohol either to the public or to their members.

“If premises are owned by a municipality,” said David Bregenzer, counsel to the director of the ABC board, “then they cannot get a club license. Whether they could drink on the property is subject to local ordinances.”

Much then is left to the municipality’s discretion.

Some fire departments, however, have been proactive in establishing guidelines before their governing cities have to. In 2005, the Rutherford Fire Department developed a written drug and alcohol policy that, amongst other things, restricts alcohol consumption from the apparatus bays of the firehouse.

In June, the Lodi Fire Department began locking up alcohol it keeps on premises, with only the most senior members having the keys. Chief Bob Cassiello said this policy was developed because, that same month, the department took on its first teenage recruits to the junior firefighter’s association.

“The feelings are, ‘Why leave the temptation out?’” Cassiello said.

Less idle time, less drinking
Volunteers cite several factors contributing to what they call the decline of alcohol consumption at the firehouse: liability issues with the towns they serve; a doubling or tripling of service calls; a higher degree of professionalism and training in the volunteer staff; and general societal changes in attitudes toward drinking and driving.

Between these busier lives and more calls to service, fewer volunteers have time to idle at the firehouse. “The time spent in the firehouse is much less than then,” Rutherford Fire Chief Chris Seidler, a three-decade veteran volunteer.

That means less time for drinking.

Some volunteer fire departments are wondering if alcohol even has a place in the firehouse anymore.

As tragic stories of accidents involving allegedly drunken firefighters continue to make headlines, a nationwide debate on the issue has sprung up on the Internet.

On the Web site Firehouse.com, both volunteer and paid firefighters have offered opinions in online forums. Many agree that a “zero tolerance” policy on drinking and firefighting is appropriate. But some say firehouse bars help build camaraderie.

In an age when volunteerism is declining, some feel the bars are one component that keeps younger members active in departments.

Others feel that alcohol is a vestige of yesteryear that is more trouble than it is worth. One user, who identified himself on the Web site as a fire chief in Ohio, wrote about why his department banned alcohol in the station house. “I’m not saying the guys shouldn’t be able to have a beer while doing weekend projects or something,” he wrote on Firehouse.com, “but alcohol CAN cause problems in a firehouse.”

In an editorial titled “Changes That Hurt,” Dave J. Iannone, the publisher of Firehouse.com, also argues that it is up to individual firefighters to push for a change in the alcohol culture.

“If your chief lets your members drink at the station and go on calls if you’re not ‘totally wasted,’” he wrote, “think about suggesting a policy change.”