Fire Alarm interrupts bar night again

Hundreds of graduate students were looking forward to enjoying one last hurrah treading the sticky floors of Metric only for their revelry to be cut short by fire alarms and the early closing of the bars.

For the second time in two weeks the fire alarm forced people to leave the Union buildings. Stepping up their game this week, the serial anarchist triggered several alarm points causing security to take over 40 minutes to deal with the alarms.

When the alarm initially sounded, the Union Bar was four people deep, and nobody moved. Such was the desperation to quench their thirst people were risking being burnt alive to get their drinks. Only when the lights got turned up and people were threatened with being kicked out did people eventually begin to move outside.

The bar staff dealt with the angry crowds by issuing paper slips with numbers written on them to try and preserve the queue at the bar; it is unknown how successful this was.

Once outside, scores of people immediately left for Eastside, and those that remained tried to keep warm by singing songs. As tensions rose between several sports clubs, glasses were broken and it looked like the whole evening had gone to the dogs.

After a stern word from Sam the bouncer things quietened down, the discontent merely simmering below the surface. As it was clear that there was no fire, people were loathe to leave but nobody was being allowed back in until the alarm was turned off; this led to people urinating in the quad as there were no other facilities available.

While it’s clear the staff on hand were doing what they could to reopen the bar as quickly as possible and that no members of the public could be allowed to enter the premesis without a working fire alarm system, those 40 minutes of cold are going to be some peoples' lasting memories of the Union.

Eventually the multiple tripped alarms were quietened, the bar was restocked and the thirsty graduands were allowed back in. This sweet sense of relief was short lived however as the bar closed at 1, the lights going up immediately, unlike a standard ‘CSP Wednesday’. Mutterings about the lack of a late licence were short-lived as patrons were encouraged to leave quickly, which led to the quad filling up fast and lots of semi-drunk people desperately competing for Uber cars. On the whole it was an enjoyable evening, even if it was punctured by a wannabe anarchist and curtailed early.

A Union spokesperson said to Felix: Unfortunately, during CSP Wednesday, three fire alarm activation points were falsely triggered by people in the venue which in-turn caused a full evacuation of the Union building. The time it took to check the activation points, isolate them and reset the alarm was around 40 minutes. A similar incident occurred last Wednesday night, again causing a full evacuation. As a result of these incidents the Union is reviewing our approach to access to the building on busy nights and will also be increasing the amount of security staff in the venue and restricting access to areas above the ground floor.

It is a shame that the actions of a few had an impact on so many people, however our first priority will always be the safety of our members.