HAMPDEN, Maine — The lack of a building permit brought construction on a rooftop deck at McLaughlin’s at the Marina to a grinding stop last week.
At issue is that the project has not yet been approved by the State Fire Marshal’s Office because of what appears to be a communication glitch.
Work on the patio began at the beginning of the month but was stopped by Hampden Code Enforcement Officer Myles Block on May 5, Kimberly McLaughlin, who owns the waterfront seafood eatery with her husband, Reid McLaughlin, said Friday.
McLaughlin said that the rooftop deck area was the second part of a two-phase project at 100 Marina Road. The first phase, which involved an expansion of the kitchen and prep area, was permitted within two weeks, she said.
McLaughlin said she applied for a permit for the upper deck two months ago and after several attempts to obtain one, decided to start work anyway.
“What I want is to find a solution to this situation going forward. I’m trying to run a business and it’s seasonal. I’m 11 days out from my contractors finishing the project and I’m not getting any callbacks. I don’t know where my lack of support is,” McLaughlin said.
“When you have contractors that are standing by and Mother Nature who is wreaking havoc, time is of the essence,” she said. The restaurant’s season is short, she said, from May to October, with the exception of holiday parties and special events.
Hampden Code Enforcement Officer Myles Block was out of the office on Friday. However, Public Safety Director Joe Rogers said that while he didn’t have all of the details, it was his understanding that construction was stopped due to lack of approval from the fire marshal’s office, which is required for construction on public buildings.
“Believe me, our intent is to work with everybody and anybody that’s doing a project, but we still have to abide by the code,” Rogers said.
McLaughlin said she met with Block and Building Inspector Jason Lundstrom and that they asked for information about the deck’s load-bearing capacity.
“We had the engineers fax over the information. We’ve got more than enough support for this upper deck. It was my understanding that that’s what they wanted. Then when it came to say, ‘Well, you’ve got that. Can we have our building permit?’
they said, ‘Now we need to have the fire marshal look after this.’”
“We weren’t aware that we needed to do anything with the fire marshal in Augusta,” McLaughlin said. “That was never even brought to our attention.
“Of course, everything they asked for, we’ve gone ahead and done it. They should have at that time said this is what’s needed, 1, 2, 3. We would have done it 1, 2, 3,” she said.
Mark Stevens, plans review supervisor for the state fire marshal’s office, said Friday that the restaurant’s owner inquired about a permit earlier in the week but that the office had not yet received application materials.
“We do have those folks out there who are not aware of the requirements to obtain a construction permit from our office. It’s not unusual for folks to say, ‘Oops, I need to contact the fire marshal’s office to get a permit,’ usually after they’ve had contact with the local code enforcement officer,” Stevens said.
The state reviews building plans for compliance with state-approved life safety codes, a process that typically begins three to four weeks after plans are submitted, he said. How long it takes to issue permits depends on what changes, if any, need to be made.
Mayor David Ryder said Friday that he just learned of the situation that morning and planned to look into it on Monday.
“I can’t say too much about it because I don’t have all the details on it. Hopefully, something good comes out of it. Personally, I don’t know why it went the road it did,” he said.
“Obviously, I think there was some miscommunication or lack of conversation between the two parties somewhere,” he said.
McLaughlin’s employs about 70 mostly seasonal part-time employees, the owner said.
Though she declined to say how much the improvements cost, she said it was “a lot and every day I can’t utilize that upper deck, that’s revenue that I’m losing.”