Wednesday November 27, around 9:45 p.m., at the Caveau 30 restaurant, on the Allées in Cannes, the evening of around fifteen Italian conventioneers turned into a nightmare.
“On the table there were about five heating lamps, table lights,” relates the victims' lawyer, Me Zuccarelli, who tried to reconstruct the scene thanks to the numerous testimonies of the people present around the table, direct witnesses, but also two customers of the restaurant located right next to Caveau 30.A waiter saw that two of these lamps were going out. Then he came with a liquid that appeared to be ethanol. He poured some on a completely extinguished lamp, but the second was not completely extinguished. By pouring the liquid on the flame, it became huge and it caused a flashback in the bottle, which also caught fire. He then threw the bottle at five people, three of whom turned into living torches.
Following this incident, five customers were injured, three of them seriously. A 35-year-old woman and two men aged 30 and 56 were seriously burned and all three were evacuated to the Toulon hospital center. The woman by helicopter, the two men by road. While two others, two men aged 54 and 56, more slightly injured, were evacuated by firefighters to Cannes hospital.
Closed for six months
A week after the unfortunate accident, around 3:30 p.m., customers who were still on the terrace at Caveau 30 suddenly saw police officers arrive, who asked them to leave the premises. By prefectural decree, the restaurant at Cours Félix-Faure in Cannes is closed for six months.
“It's sure it's linked to this accident and I can understand it, regretted Laurent, bartender of the establishment, in our columns at that time. It's true that people were badly burned, but six months of closure is very severe, because we will lose the clientele of all the big congresses in Cannes, notably MIPIM. For the staff, who will be paid furlough, it is all the more difficult as we are also paid on a percentage basis.”
Liquid bioethanol instead of gel bioethanol
The lawyer for the injured, Me Jérôme Zuccarelli, claims that the City of Cannes failed in its obligations to enforce the law and filed a complaint against the bar but also the town hall. “To the extent that these table fires are not intended for the public domain but for the private domain, intended to be indoors and not outdoors. The mayor of Cannes cannot ignore this”he explained in our columns a few days ago.
For Cannes town hall, the law was respected. “Bioethanol lamps are not part of the bans provided for by Law No. 2021-1104 of August 22, 2021 on the fight against climate change and strengthening resilience to its effects.”
And points out the poor handling of the lamp. “There is also a question of common sense: you don’t throw gasoline on a flame.” It is based on the order relating to the temporary administrative closure of the Le Caveau 30 establishment, on which it is written that “it appears, according to the first elements collected, that non-compliance with the rules of use provided for these devices constitutes the main cause of the fire which resulted in injuries to five people” and that “this situation results from a failure to comply with risk prevention obligations in an establishment open to the public.”
And specifies that “the staff of the establishment, having heard about the use of Fire Lanterns, indicated that they had received summary training from their management, specifying that no use process had been put in place, that bottles of bioethanol gel and liquid were seized” and that “witnesses interviewed confirmed that the server had used liquid bioethanol (white bottle) and not gel (transparent bottle) to relight the lanterns as indicated in the instructions”.
