More On Ballard's Illegal Fire Inspection Fee Program

The more we learn about Mayor Greg Ballard's attempt to illegally extort fees from Indianapolis business owners under the guise of fire safety protection, the more sordid this affair becomes. Supposedly, commercial property owners and their lessees are being afforded an opportunity to voluntarily self-inspect their buildings and leased premises to ensure compliance with state fire building codes. To qualify for the voluntary self-inspection program, a business owner must complete a lengthy affidavit affirming his or her business complies with the fire code and annually pay a $25 self-inspection; otherwise, the Indianapolis Fire Department says it will dispatch an inspector to their property and charge an inspection fee ranging from $50 to $150.

What I've subsequently learned is that IFD only randomly targeted property owners and their lessees with written notices of the self-compliance program. While lessees with small, single-room offices received demand notices from IFD, omitted from the notice were businesses that arguably pose a much greater fire risk, including many retail establishments. In my downtown office building, for example, a cafe with a fully-operating kitchen, a lobby shop with cooling and heating appliances, a tailor shop with hot irons, a hair/scalp laser treatment clinic and a beauty salon were all omitted from the list of businesses in our building who were notified to comply with self-inspection or face mandatory inspections. These are businesses that are not currently inspected by IFD for fire compliance on any periodic basis. In fact, IFD's skeleton fire safety inspectors perform very few inspections annually to ensure compliance with fire safety codes.

When the Indianapolis Star's Jon Murray questioned IFD about the number of notices that were mailed to business owners, he was told only about 6,000 notices were mailed--a number that clearly indicated that a significant number of business owners did not receive notices instructing them either to comply with self-inspection and pay the $25 fee, or face an annual inspection with a higher fee. Remarkably, IFD told Murray the department expected only about 58% of those who were mailed notices to participate in the self-inspection program and pay up. Can you imagine the city council levying a tax on businesses and then leaving it up to a city agency to arbitrarily decide which business owners to subject to the tax? That's essentially what is happening here. Such an arbitrary application of a tax or fee runs afoul of the equal protection clause.

Laying aside the equal protection argument, the fee itself is simply not permitted under Indiana law. State law says the fire department, not business owners, shall inspect commercial properties to ensure compliance with the state's fire safety code. There is no provision in the law that permits fire departments to shift in any manner this responsibility to property owners and lessees, and state officials were not asked by IFD for permission to conduct a self-inspection program before rolling it out last month. Moreover, only persons certified to inspect properties for compliance with fire safety codes are allowed to conduct fire safety inspections under Indiana law. IFD is asking business owners who are not qualified or certified to conduct fire safety inspections to perform them and affirm compliance under penalties of perjury.

The dismissive attitude shown by the Ballard administration and city council members who passed without debate late last year the new ordinance allowing IFD to implement this illegal self-inspection program is quite disturbing. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This self-inspection program is not permitted under Indiana law, and no business owner should comply with these demand notices they received from IFD, which I believe amount to nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to extort additional revenues from unsuspecting business owners to help fund the fire department. I've tossed my notice in the trash can, and I urge all other Indianapolis business owners who received this notice to do the same. If IFD attempts to enforce this ordinance, we'll take them to court.