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L&I approved unsafe installation of gate that killed girl at Rita's Water Ice

A city inspector approved the unsafe installation of a security gate at a Rita's Water Ice stand, and five years later the gate fell and killed a 3-year-old girl, according to documents and interviews.

The security gate on this Rita’s Water Ice on Girard Avenue fell on June 28, 2014, killing Wynter Larkin, 3, of Yeadon — five years after it passed an inspection. (JOSEPH KACZMAREK / AP, File)
The security gate on this Rita’s Water Ice on Girard Avenue fell on June 28, 2014, killing Wynter Larkin, 3, of Yeadon — five years after it passed an inspection. (JOSEPH KACZMAREK / AP, File)Read more

A city inspector approved the unsafe installation of a security gate at a Rita's Water Ice stand, and five years later the gate fell and killed a 3-year-old girl, according to documents and interviews.

After that accident last summer, another inspector covered up the mistake, say four current or former inspectors for the Department of Licenses and Inspections, citing agency records.

The accident happened on June 28, 2014, a year after L&I had been rocked by the deaths of six people in the Center City building collapse at 22d and Market Streets.

At Rita's, the gate, estimated by inspectors to weigh around 1,000 pounds, crushed Wynter Larkin of Yeadon, who was attending a fund-raiser with her mother, Cheryl.

The shop, at 2829 W. Girard Ave., underwent renovations in 2008, L&I records show.

Architectural plans prepared in support of the permit for the renovation show that the roll-up gate was meant to be installed within a wall, not hung on the outside of a wall as was done, according to records and inspectors.

The L&I inspector who signed off on the renovation did not mention that deficiency when he gave the property a final inspection in 2009, records show.

And five years later, when the gate fell, a second inspector also made no mention of that omission, L&I records show.

L&I Commissioner Carlton Williams declined to comment. His chief of staff, Beth Grossman, also declined to discuss the matter, citing a lawsuit filed by the child's family.

Neither L&I nor the city is named in the suit, filed in Common Pleas Court. It names 10 defendants, including Rita's Water Ice Franchise Co. L.L.C.; Kenneth Jackson and Rebecca Cooper-Jackson, owners of the West Girard Avenue Rita's; contractor Gensis Group Ltd.; and the company that installed the gate, Day or Night Door Service of Gloucester City.

The Larkins allege that Rita's, the local franchise owners, the contractor, and the installation company were aware of "the unsafe and hazardous condition of the gate" that fell on their daughter and thus are responsible for her death.

Through their lawyers, Jackson and Cooper-Jackson, of Fairmount, have denied that. A lawyer for Rita's said in court documents that the suit was baseless and "unsupported by the facts."

The lawyer for Gensis has blamed the door-service company. That company and its owner, David Woods, have not responded to the allegations in court filings. Woods declined to comment.

The L&I inspectors who discussed the city's handling of the incident and shared documents with The Inquirer asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. They said they were speaking out because what they described as a colleague's error in misreading plans was compounded by what they view as a cover-up to protect the agency.

After the gate fell, L&I inspector Shane McNulty wrote in the agency's computer database, known as HANSEN, that the gate had not been installed correctly.

He wrote, "2 Inch lag bolts were fastened into the stucco as the means of attachment. This is not code and should not have been used."

What McNulty did not say was that in 2009, his colleague Ray Gaines had inspected and signed off on a renovation that did not follow the approved plans.

Those plans called for the gate to be built inside the front wall, according to the four inspectors who studied the drawings. By being hung on the outside of the front wall, it was insufficiently supported, the inspectors said. Yet Gaines approved the installation, according to L&I records.

"It was a simple mistake, and Ray unknowingly missed a detail," one inspector said. "It's unfortunate."

Gaines declined to comment and referred questions to Grossman, the L&I chief of staff. She said the agency would not respond to statements from unnamed inspectors.

McNulty did not respond to phone messages or e-mail requests for an interview.

According to L&I inspectors familiar with the project, a gate that had been at the shop was taken down in 2007.

An architect's drawings of the new gate, installed in 2008, show where a "new rolling grille with open slats" - the security gate - should have been. The drawings, obtained by The Inquirer, show that the assembly from which the gate hangs was also meant to have been supported by a steel beam behind the awning, inspectors said.

The planned gate would have been so secure within the wall, "you couldn't take the gate off unless you took the wall apart," one L&I inspector said.

Raymond Rola, the Center City architect whose firm drew up the plans, confirmed that the gate was meant to be built into the wall. "We had drawn it to be a built-in gate," Rola said.

Yet when Gaines inspected the shop after the renovation, he wrote "all work complete," and the project passed final inspection on July 23, 2009, L&I records show. He did not note that the gate was in the wrong place, according to the plans, inspectors said.

"Ray made a mistake," a former inspector said. "You're supposed to inspect for conformance to plans."

Even if Gaines had not looked at the plans, inspectors say, he should have noticed that the gate was anchored improperly with two-inch lag bolts as opposed to through-bolts that are as long as a wall is wide and would have secured the gate properly, according to code.

Five years later, the gate fell, killing Wynter, and McNulty arrived at Rita's.

What he wrote in HANSEN in June 2014 surprised and angered inspectors who reviewed the records:

"Owners purchased the property 8 years ago with roll up gate already installed. There is no record of a permit for the installation of the gate."

Why, inspectors wondered, did McNulty mention the old gate that had been discarded, rather than focusing on the new gate that had just fallen?

And why didn't he mention the architect's plans that had not been followed?

"Shane failed to reference the documents right in front of him," one inspector said.

He and others suggested that the omission was deliberate.

After the Center City disaster, L&I officials were fearful to be tied to another death, inspectors said.

A lawyer for the Larkin family, Joe Tucker, said in the lawsuit that the owners of the Rita's hired Gensis, a Roxborough firm, to demolish the front structure of the stand and remove the original gate in December 2007.

Lawyers for Gensis, which appears to have gone out of business, declined to comment. Kenneth Jackson, co-owner of the water ice stand, also said he had no comment.

In the suit, Tucker blames the owners and contractors including Gensis for the accident. Gensis blames Day or Night.

The suit says Day or Night put up the new gate on Nov. 25, 2008. Afterward, the gate "was noticed to have been loosely affixed to the facade of the building, detaching from the building in certain respects, and overall unsafe," the suit says.

Gensis lawyers say Woods, owner of Day or Night, was responsible for "improper installation of the gate," court records show.

Woods would not come to the door when a reporter went to his Gloucester City home.

Although L&I knew that Gaines "missed or misread" the architect's plans, inspectors say, he was not disciplined.

Gaines, who was acting supervisor of L&I's North District office at the time, was recently appointed head of the agency's Construction Site Task Force.

215-854-4969@AlfredLubrano