I have to say it wouldn’t be my first thought when my kid went on a night out but the reality is there are probably an awful lot more of these sort of places around and it’s lucky there aren’t more accidents like this one.
My words before he left were usually along the lines of ‘don’t do anything stupid, don’t leave your drink unattended and make sure to check where all the exits are.’
I think the worst that happened was having to manhandle his rather drunk, puking friend back to his father’s flat in town as he was incapable of making it home to his mother’s place.
I may be a bit paranoid about the exit thing because my grandmother lost two of her seven children in a fire when they were young and she made me petrified of anything related to fire.
"Under Swiss federal law, beer and wine can be sold to people from the age of 16, while spirits can only be sold to people aged 18 or over, according to the country’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH).
Specific law in Valais canton states that from 10 p.m. onwards those under 16 can access premises serving alcohol if accompanied by their legal guardian or another adult authorized by their legal guardian. The fire broke out at the resort bar around 1:30 a.m. local time, police said."
One of my friends escaped the Childers Palace Backpacker fire in Queensland, Australia where 15 young people perished in June 2000.
Although the cause of the fire was arson, that wasn’t why so many died.
An exit door in one of the bunk bed rooms where 10 died was blocked by a bunk bed. Windows had bars on them.
There was also no emergency lighting so when the power failed, the building was in complete darkness and the fire alarms had been disconnected by the owner a few weeks earlier due to a malfunction.
It would appear that when these tragedies occur, a combination of negligent factors is usually the cause and not just a single one.
I don’t think anyone is denying that laws were broken with regard to drinking ages but I still don’t know what point you are (continually) trying to make.
Do you think it is less tragic if an eighteen year old dies rather than a sixteen year old?
Do you think fewer people would have died if the occupants had been two or three years older?
Do you think that the worst part of this tragedy is that people may have been drinking under age?
I’m no where near your mouth. A question mark after a sentence means it’s a question.
I asked what your point was twice.
The thing is in Switzerland is young people really don’t drink very much any more. It’s just not a thing.
So, even if they were underage - they were probably just sitting there having a good time.
Yes, they shouldn’t have been there and yes it was late (but it was new Years Eve, and they were on holiday) but in the grand scheme of things, their age was not a mitigating factor in their deaths.
Please note that that Swiss law on drinking applies to the purchase of wine/beer or alcohol. It does not apply to the consumption. It is not illegal to consume alcohol at any age.
A review of the public official gazette of the Valais, where inputs for building permits usually have to be published, shows: In the official journals of the last eleven years, no such input for the elaborate interior conversion of the basement of the bar, which the operator carried out himself. In a construction publication from 2015, there is only talk of the construction of a glazed terrace outside the bar.
The question therefore arises whether the conversion of the interior has ever been approved at all. Fire protection would also have been tested in the building permit procedure. The Valais authorities do not answer this question. The municipality president of Crans-Montana refers to the cantonal police. The police refer to the prosecutor’s office. And she doesn’t answer.
However, it is possible that no building permit was necessary for the interior conversion or that it was granted and the building entry did not appear in the Official Journal because the works were judged to be insignificant. The Valais law allows this exception. (Bar) operators did not respond to a request.
It seems that there is no way out of this:
Regardless of the building permit, the restaurant should have been regularly checked by fire protection experts. The municipality is responsible for this. Research in Crans-Montana shows that the checks were not carried out in the way they should have been carried out. First, the operator of the «Le Constellation» himself spoke on Friday afternoon. He said in a telephone call with the «Tribune de Genève» that the restaurant had been checked three times in ten years. That should be his defense: the proof that everything went right.
But it is the opposite. Because the Valais law stipulates that publicly accessible buildings are controlled by fire police every year. So why weren’t there seven more checks?
I take this as an intercantonal war:
The same question raises the operator’s statement from another relatively large bar in the village. He told this newspaper that his bar had been checked after a remodel. But since then, he will only be checked if he reports changes to the community. He did not experience periodic controls.
One of the reason why they should be accompanied is that in case of an emergency there will be an adult person who can make a right decision that can save their life and health.
Sixteen new victims of the Crans-Montana fire have been identified, the Valais authorities said on Sunday. All 40 deceased were identified three days after the tragedy.
Identification operations carried out by the Valais Cantonal Police, the DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) and the Institute of Forensic Medicine have identified 16 new people who died in the fire on 1 January at the Constellation bar, the police wrote in a statement on Sunday evening.
They are two 15-year-old Swiss women, a 22-year-old Swiss woman, a 24-year-old dual national (Switzerland/France), a 16-year-old Italian, a 15-year-old Italian, a 16-year-old Italian, a 22-year-old Portuguese woman, a 17-year-old Belgian, a 33-year-old French woman, a 26-year-old French woman, a 23-year-old Frenchman, a 20-year-old Frenchman, a 17-year-old Frenchman, as well as a 14-year-old Frenchman and a 15-year-old triple national (France/Israel/Great Britain)."
Take with a grain of salt, it’s insideparadeplatz, anyway…4 days until some mentioned Mattmark (VS). The article starts with a list of dead children and their notable parents. The mention of Mattmark is a comparison to the current event. This time, the dead are not anonymous immigrant workers. It’s repugnant to frame things like this, but that’s our world.
People is back to work tomorrow. Let’s see what lawyers do in the following weeks.
Tangentially, I’m surprised at how incisive newspapers have been on the issue. Something expected from reputable newspapers like NZZ, TdG or Le Temps. But, not expected at all from 20min or blick. Of course, they lack a more structured editorial line but at least they publish the facts and everyone can assemble the pieces in their own head. Then, compare newspapers SRF and RTS: reports about a mass at church, or how sad relatives are, and how hard the job of the cantonal prosecutor is (*). I hope people remembers these reports when thinking about the upcoming vote on the funding of public TV.
(*) I was about to joke about “how hard is the job” of the cantonal prosecutor when I learned the last one quit on 2024 due to challenges at the job, and committed suicide in October 2025. So, yes, it’s a high stress position, a thankless job. Anyway, not a reason to take attention away from the important open questions.
Where death and serious injury is involved, the assigning responsibility is unavoidable, and in fact, essential. Justice is essential for closure.
But to do so, a thorough investigation needs to be completed. One that is objective and with the highest integrity. Emotion has compromised justice far too often.
As for investigations and prosecutions..any job that involves looking at gut-retching photos and forensic evidence on a daliy basis isn’t healthy in the long term. 10 years of front-line policing was enough for me.
The building permit application is dated December 19, 2025. The manager of the bar Le Constellation wanted to enlarge his covered terrace. He also wanted to remove a side exit from the veranda (glassed terrace).
In this public inquiry, some of the building’s old plans are visible. One can see, in particular, the bar’s interior door. It measures 1.5 meters, with a non-compliant opening. The door should open in the direction of escape, which is not the case on the plan. The veranda door also opens in the wrong direction, inwards.
And the gold nugget is buried somewhere in the text. Who applies for construction permits?
At the heart of the Crans-Montana tragedy, one question remains unanswered: Were the renovations carried out in 2015 by the manager of the bar Le Constellation authorized? It was during these extensive renovations that the insulating foam, key elements in the tragedy, was installed.
The NZZ revealed on Sunday that no public consultation regarding the interior is visible in the official gazettes. However, there is a public consultation from 2015 concerning the facade. This application aimed to “install a sliding glass structure and retractable awning on the roof terrace.”
The building permit application was not submitted by the French couple who managed the restaurant, but by J.B., a Swiss citizen. This resident of Crans-Montana is the building’s owner.
Fire safety standards are like car safety standards…they are not applied retrospectively, with one exception: if there is a significant construction OR usage change.
The bar was renovated in 2015 which meant it should have come under the revised 2015 (still current) fire regulations. The regulations included a QA component that could have required a certificate by a private fire expert. However the building industry was caught off-guard by the new rules in that there were insufficient experts to cover all projects.
It is therefore possible that this project may not have been deemed a significant change (especially if largely cosmetic), and was not forced to comply with 2015 requirements.
As for the floor plan. Inward opening doors were probably compliant when the building was built, and therefore retrospective modifications to the exits were not required.
Well, the renovation was very extensive. They even got a digger inside the building. I doubt that they have not changed the entrance doors during that renovation.
Thanks for the insight, I completely understand from compliance perspective that applies to any job.
However, thinking a bit outside the professional experience job, this might be precisely the issue and the lesson learned (hopefully): fire safety standards not being applied retroactively to spaces hosting hundreds of people.
I was wondering how they managed to get the mini-digger down into the basement but of course they made the stairs much narrower during the renovation and after the digger had done it’s work:
