Colectiv Club owners placed on 30-day remand

The three owners of Colectiv Club, Alin Anastasescu, Paul Gancea and Costin Mincu have been placed on remand for 30 days on Tuesday night. The decision is not final, but is binding, so the three were incarcerated at the Bucharest Police arrest center.

The three had been detained on Monday evening by the General Prosecutor’s Office prosecutors on charges of manslaughter and bodily injury.

On the other hand, the three shareholders of the nightclub claimed in front of the prosecutors that they didn’t know that pyrotechnic materials would be used when they signed the contract for the ‘Goodbye to Gravity’ concert. The main shareholder Alin Anastasescu said he had found about fireworks on Facebook later on and had asked for further details, but the pyrotechnician had told him the fireworks were authorized and they were burning with cold fire and they are not harmful.

Anastasescu also told prosecutors that he had only managed the artistic, advertising and musical expertize business in the company and that the space and equpiment renting contract with the rock band had been signed by his associate, Costin Mincu and the Digidream Ltd company, which was managing ‘Goodbye to Gravity’.

“About the firefighter’s authorization, I know it existed, as well as fire authorizations, the other two associates told me that. Firemen came to undergo checkings in September 2014; they drafted a fire authorization. I don’t know if there were the firemen themselves or just an authorized company,” Anastasescu said at the hearings.

State Secretary with the Interior Ministry (MAI) Raed Arafat on Tuesday said that Colectiv club, the scene of a terrible fire on Friday evening, had been officially declared as a bar and restaurant with a seating capacity of 80, a reason why no additional documents were requested by the Fire Brigade.

“When this venue was registered at the local administration, no mention was made of it becoming a club. It was declared a bar and restaurant with a seating capacity of 80, and that was a problem, because it fell under a different jurisdiction. That jurisdiction did not make an authorization and firefighting compliance from the Fire Brigade mandatory. (…) They stated something that was not compliant with reality. It was authorized to operate as requested, as far as I understand as a bar and restaurant with a seating capacity of 80. That is why no additional requests from the Fire Brigade were necessary that are usually mandatory for venues with an activity entailing more people in the same space,” Arafat told journalists at the Government House.

He added that a bona-fide declaration that firefighting rules are adhered to was cancelled as far back as 2007, at the requests of the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (ISU).

“The bona fide declaration regarding firefighting compliance was cancelled. It had been valid for two years, after which, in 2007, upon a request from ISU after detecting abuse of the declaration, the possibility of a bona fide declaration was rescinded,” Arafat explained.

Read the last Gov’t decision on nightclubs, as well as the confession made by one of the club’s owners here: http://www.romaniajournal.ro/government-decision-isu-will-close-clubs-that-endanger-peoples-lives-one-of-colectiv-club-owners-i-have-huge-regrets/