Laurier Palace Theatre Fire

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The Laurier Palace Theatre fire was a small fire that occurred in the theatre on January 9,1927 in Montreal, Canada. The fire started in early afternoon during a comedy called "Get em Young". 800 children came to watch, and panic erupted when smoke began to billow into the theater.

The children — who were seated in the balcony — had trouble exiting the building, as one of two stairways that led to safety was locked. Furthermore, the doors opened toward the inside, not outside. Smoke filled the air, choking and blinding the children within two minutes. Firefighters arrived rapidly from fire station number 13 just across the street, but not fast enough to prevent the deaths of 77 children, stampeded and asphyxiated.

The first to enter the building, Alphéa Arpin, discovered his own son, Gaston, aged 6, in the pile of cadavers. Another man, Adélard Boisseau, discovered one of his 3 children. He would identify the bodies of his two other children later that evening at the morgue.

On January 11, funeral services were held in l'Église de la Nativité, near the theatre, for 39 of the victims. More than 50,000 watched the funeral procession. During the homily, Father Georges Gauthier, co-archbishop of Montréal, asked why, on the Lord's day, such places of pleasure are allowed to remain open ("pourquoi on laisse ouverts en ce jour (celui du Seigneur) des lieux de plaisir comme celui-ci qui vient d'être incendié?"). He stated concern about the moral safety ("sécurité morale") of children. He asked whether it was too rash to ask if, in this province, one could find could souls large enough and impartial enough to write laws barring children from the cinema.

The Catholic Church seized upon the the tragedy of the Laurier Palace Theatre as an opportunity to block children's access to the cinema in general, claiming that the cinema ruined the health of children, weakened their lungs, troubled their imagination, excited their nervous system, hindered their studies, overexcited their sinful ideas and led to immorality ("ruine la santé des enfants, affaiblit leurs poumons, affole leur imagination, excite leur système nerveux, nuit à leurs études, surexcite les désirs mauvais et conduit à l'immoralité").

A few months later Judge Louis Boyer recommended that everyone under 16 be forbidden access to cinema screenings. The following year such a law was passed, and remained in effect for 33 years, until 1961. Building codes were also modified so that the doors of public buildings were to open outwards.

In 1967 the cinema law was further modified, installing the Visa system, dividing movie-going populations into age groups of 18+, 14+ and general (for all). This change of law coincided with Expo 67 in Montreal, a time of rapid evolution of attitudes as the city began to open itself to the world.