The Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky is the third deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. It occurred on the night of May 28, 1977, during the Memorial Day weekend. A total of 165 persons died and over 200 were injured as a result of the blaze.
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The Beverly Hills was a major attraction, less than two miles (3 km) outside Cincinnati, just across the Ohio River in Southgate, Kentucky. It drew its talent from Las Vegas, Nashville, Hollywood and New York, among other places. The site had been a popular nightspot and illegal gambling house as early as 1937; Dean Martin had been a blackjack dealer there.[1] It had opened under the then-current management in 1971. [2] Several additions were completed by 1976, creating a sprawling complex of function rooms, corridors, and service areas connected by narrow corridors.
It is believed as many as 3,000 patrons and 182 employees were inside the club at 9:00 p.m. on the evening of the fire, just as the early show was beginning in the Cabaret Room. The headliner for the show, popular Hollywood singer and actor John Davidson,[3] was in his dressing room; comedians Jim Teter and Jim McDonald were performing the warm-up act. The Cabaret Room was the larger of two showrooms with a stage, and it was estimated that over 1,300 patrons had been squeezed into the room. Because of overcrowding, additional guests had been seated on ramps leading to the stage. Elsewhere in the club patrons were enjoying their meals and drinks in several restaurants, bars, private party rooms, and the Empire Room, the other performance room, where an awards banquet for 425 people was taking place. Upstairs, functions were taking place in the six Crystal Rooms.
A wedding reception in the Zebra Room had ended at 8:30 p.m. Some guests complained that the room was becoming overheated, though no smoke was evident yet. The doors of the Zebra Room were closed after the reception ended, and the fire continued to smolder undetected for another 25 minutes. Two waitresses looking for tray jacks entered the Zebra Room at about 8:56 p.m. They saw dense smoke hanging near the ceiling and notified management immediately. A phone call was placed to the fire department at 9:01 p.m., and the first fire engine arrived in only three minutes. Meanwhile, the management used two fire extinguishers inside the Zebra Room, but to little effect. The fire had taken hold and could no longer be contained inside the room.[4]
The investigation into the fire found the following deficiencies, as enumerated by the Cincinnati Enquirer:[3]
On October 28, 2008, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear appointed a panel to investigate claims that arson may have been the cause of the fire. In March 2009, the panel, in recommending that the investigation not be reopened, characterized the new accusations as "a very tiny shred of evidence of arson and a huge mountain of conjecture, unsupported speculation, and personal opinion."[5]
In a letter dated late June, 2011 from the Attorney General of Kentucky to a retired member of the State Police of Kentucky, some 30 boxes of color slides taken the day after the fire, including pictures of the club's basement during the aftermath, were ordered to be returned to the State archives for public accessibility, as per the Freedom of Information Act. According to the club's former busboy and witness, David Brock of Northern Kentucky, the slides were intentionally kept privately stored and away from the public since they were taken and prove arson. These slides depict unethical wiring, timers and other devices , which were intentionally placed in the club's basement leading to the Zebra Room in the days prior to the fire and was an intentional and malicious act of sabotage. "We are possibly looking at one of the worst mass-murders in America," according to Glenn Corbett, a high-profiled fire and safety trainer on the East Coast, who testified to US Congress after his inspection of the 911 tragedy in NYC in 2001. [6]
The last victim of the fire, Barbara Thornhill of Delhi Township, died on March 1, 1978, ten months after the fire.[3] Many early sources (including the Pulitzer citation below) give the death toll as 164. Some sources give the death toll as 167 to include the unborn children of two pregnant women who died in the fire.
Richard Whitt of the Louisville Courier-Journal was awarded the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Local General or Spot News Reporting for his articles on the fire. His citation reads: "For his coverage of a fire that took 164 lives at the Beverly Hills Supper Club at Southgate, Ky., and subsequent investigation of the lack of enforcement of state fire codes."[7]
As of 2011, the site of the club has been left undeveloped.[8]
This was the first lawsuit to utilize the concept of "enterprise liability" and one of the first disaster cases to sue as a class action.
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