NEW HAVEN, Connecticut - The fire may be out in New Haven, but the controversies it engendered are still smoldering. A December 12 fire in downtown New Haven sparked concerns among city officials and firefighters about asbestos exposure. Now the owner of the burned structure implies that the city’s hasty actions to demolish the building may have released even more asbestos into the air.

The December 12th fire was the worst fire to affect downtown New Haven in decades. It broke out at the Brass Monkey, a new bar in the old Kresge building, and quickly spread to nearby businesses. At its height, dozens of firefighters were involved in containing the blaze.

The morning after the blaze, official air quality tests at the fire site showed elevated levels of airborne asbestos.  Many of the firefighters had fought the blazes from outside the building without wearing protective face masks that would have filtered out any harmful asbestos fires. That raised concerns that the firefighters who fought the fire may have been exposed to airborne asbestos, a serious health hazard that causes mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that has no other cause. Asbestos exposure can also cause a number of other disabling, painful and fatal conditions that include asbestosis, lung cancer, asbestos cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, mouth cancer and a number of other cancers.

The elevated asbestos levels at the site also raised concerns among city officials about the possibility of public asbestos exposure, especially since the fire site was a busy downtown street with a great deal of traffic. Because of the concern, the city asked that the building owner Paul Denz expedite demolition of the property. Denz, on vacation in Florida, balked at demolition, offering instead to cover the ruins with plywood to isolate the possible asbestos threat to the city. Mayor John DeStefano, citing safety concerns, stated that if Denz refused to take the building down in a timely manner, the city would take control of the property and demolish the building at Denz’ expense.

On December 31, over objections from Denz, the city began the demolition of the old Kresge building. Unfortunately, in their haste to demolish the building, the city failed to consider its structural issues. In the course of the demolition, a beam in the Kresge building collapsed, taking down a key support to the Spector building, next door. On January 10, the city demolished the Spector building over the objections of Shang Jin Hahn, the owner of that building.

A spokesman for the mayor said that the city had no choice. The Spector building was built from an outdated design and relied on part of its structural support from the Kresge building.

Denz says the city acted too hastily, and that it has taken an antagonistic stance toward property owners. He claims that the city has overstepped their bounds. In reference to the demolition and the collapse that eventually brought down the Spector building, Denz pointed out that if a private citizen had “been doing it that way”, he probably would have ended up in jail. He also pointed out that, ironically considering the city’s concerns about the property in the first place, the two buildings that were demolished contained lots of asbestos in the tiles and pipe fittings.

An environmental monitor was on-site throughout the demolitions, taking air quality samples. None of them showed significant levels of asbestos.

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