The concept of "grandfathering" club owners' wealth (i.e. not requiring the current owners to implement the latest codes... fire, health, safety, or otherwise) at the cost of imperiling the patrons who generate that wealth is unacceptable social policy, economically unfounded, and morally bankrupt.
Not person would abstain from seeing a band for the reason that a beer was going to be $.25 cents more, or that the cover was going to be a little more in order to re-establish an owner's profit margin while paying for legislated "betterments."
Like it or not, one must pay for a sewer betterment even if one doesn't hook up to the system. And, with the betterment, one has no one but themselves to fund the cost, even if one doesn't hook-up to the sewer system!
So, in an area where concert tickets range into the hundred / thousands of dollars, its a specious argument to justify grandfathering based on economic hardship.
Additionally, since the law would apply equally, no owner would benefit over the other. In short, the playing field would remain level, BUT ON A MUCH SAFER PLANE.
In the end, the customer always pays. Because the lack of of responsible fire codes and grandfathering, the patrons at The Station paid with their lives.
