Queen Mary is not Fire Code Compliant

[Mary Hamric]

Interesting article on the fire safety condition of the ship right now:

http://www.presstelegram.com/search/ci_6685021?IADID=Search-www.presstelegram.com-www.presstelegram.com

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Well, this doesn't bode well at all. The outfit which is required to bring the ship up to fire code snuff really isn't in any position to do so. Even if they were, a fire protection system on 80,000 tons of ocean liner isn't something that can be fixed in only a few days.

 

[Jason Schleisman]

Wow, what a mess. I had no idea any of this was going on - specifically, that lease was sold again. I hope that whoever owns the lease in the end will keep her in shape, not remove or tear down anything of historical significance, and will have the funds to continue preservation work. Does the City of Long Beach still actually own the Queen Mary?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Does the City of Long Beach still actually own the Queen Mary?<<

Yep. In fairness, I don't think they had any idea what they were getting into when the first aquired the ship, and it appears to be a dead certainty that the outfits who picked up the lease to operate the attraction did either. After nearly 40 years, you would think that by now, somebody would have learned the lessons, but this obviously isn't the case either.

 

[Mary Hamric]

Yeah, I happened to be visiting my family and saw this in the local paper so when I got home here, I posted the link.

It's pretty sad. I visited the ship many, many times while growing up in Southern California and it has a very special place in my heart. It's so sad to see these continual issues with keeping the ship in the black financially and in good condition.

 

[Steve Olguin]

You can believe this has a lot to do with city politics. The city does not want the current operator of the ship to receive a payoff from the new lease deal with "Save the Queen" (rumored to be $4 million). If they cannot fix the problems, the city will most likely start eviction proceedings, leaving Joseph Prevratil with no payoff.