From hearings last week, defense lawyer tells words and emojis in manager-employee conversations have little meaning. No operational stuff here, just 2 friends fooling around in whatsapp, no real world consequences:
According to RTS reports, numerous damning messages against the Moretti couple were read by prosecutors during the hearing.
Another message stunned the plaintiffs’ attorneys present in the hearing room. It was an exchange between Jacques Moretti and an employee. In this exchange, it appears that Jacques Moretti asks his interlocutor “if the emergency exit at Le Constellation across from the restrooms is still blocked”, and if no one is using it.
The employee replies that it is still blocked. Jacques Moretti then sends the thumbs-up emoji.
When confronted by the media about this message, Patrick Michod, who is defending Jacques Moretti, replied that he would not comment in detail on this point due to the prohibition on discussing the content of the proceedings ordered by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The lawyer adds, however: “In a tragedy of this magnitude, the meaning and weight of words play an enormous role. Above all, people ascribe meanings to them that they do not have. Jacques Moretti explained this very clearly to the prosecutors. There isn’t much more to say.”
The prosecutors will determine the weight to be given to the numerous messages they have between the Moretti couple and their employees.
That may well be true to some extent in general but it is still pretty difficult to put an innocent or positive spin on a “Thumbs Up” response from an owner to an employee to a reply that the emergency exits are still blocked
If anything, the owner just didn’t understand the consequences of doing so - and neglected to correctly assess the amount of danger he was putting his guests in from past incidents that we know of.
He was obviously too busy running and expanding his restaurant-empire.
Sadly, nobody ever spoke up to the authorities, as far as we know. And the authorities never cared about anything but the tax-revenue.
Plenty of time and occasion to fix this, all passed. Until it was too late.
I fail to see how you can put any lipstick on this pig. No owner is in any kind of position of qualifying regulations and public requirements - never ever. It simply doesn’t matter at all if they understand them (and the reasons) or not.
The outcome of this fire couldn’t highlight any better why the owner (or anybody else for that matter, including the responsible inspector and superior) has zero say whether the safety measures get implemented.
The fire doesn’t give a toss if you like its consequences or not.
Oh, indeed. In that way, it is a great equalizer and to a point, very Swiss.
But I know how it is to be busy and running your own business with employees is a very busy job. It literally consumes you.
So, somebody, at some point (preferably the last time the foam caught fire before it burned the whole thing down) should have told him about his restaurant potentially becoming a second “Station Fire” and taking his restaurant business, potentially his life (in an abstract as well as very physical way) and last but not least that of countless others with it.
I do hope we get a record when somebody asks him about past fires that occurred after the renovation and before January 2026 (List of nightclub fires - Wikipedia) and if he never spared a thought to the foam on his own ceiling.
Because strangely enough, nobody else did.
And now we have 41 dead, dozens more disfigured, hundreds injured and nine figures of damages, ruined lives, a at least two generations of victims families traumatized.
What an excellent comeback, congrats: Always play the player rather than the ball.
As for the rest of your post:
I have no idea who or what part of my post you’re arguing against. I’d love to hear your excuses for the dozens of dead and probably hundreds of impacted victims (for life, just to be clear).
Maybe think twice before you use the keyboard the next time.
The responsible for fire safety inspections at the time of the bar opening (2015) refused to answer questions from the prosecution back in April. He requested to have access to the investigation files before answering. After some sparring with prosecution, the guy had access to the files and agreed to answer questions. That happened by end of July.
Mr. Fire Safety inspector had a 100% job in a plumbing company. At the same time, he was the chief of the municipal firefighters. So, beyond the plumbing job and leading the firefighters, municipal fire safety officer. He declared that the job had no description, methods or objectives and an annual salary of 5k CHF.
The bar owners submit an application for the permit for renovation work. The fire safety officer checks the plans and photos and approves his part of the permit.
The renovation works are finished and the bar opens. 2 months after opening, Mr. Security officer inspects the bar. A emergency door shown in the docs is a bit different in reality. An emergency door shall work while being pushed. In the real world, it needs to be pulled to open. This discrepancy is not recorded in the log of the inspection. This boring detail about the emergency door would be a footnote in the investigation, but several bodies where found near to it, a few meters from safety.
The most interesting answer, the fire inspection only concerned the street level. Mr. Fire Inspector never visited the underground section. There is no explanation for this.
On one hand, Mr. Fire Inspector missed a lot. On the other hand, 5k at 150 CHF/hour yields…33 hours. Can a fire safety officer inspect all buildings in several villages with 30 hours/year plus some paperwork? It seems only job titles exist, not real people doing the work in the real world.
I don’t think this is a particularly bad thing. These things take time, and I assume with the wider interest, especially of those countries that had victims lost in that disaster, it’s imperative that every detail is absolutely correct and fully investigated. Nobody wants anyone getting off on a technicality.
