DATE: Wednesday, September 17, 1997         TAG: 9709170457

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   59 lines

SPRINKLER LAW FORCES RESORT INN TO CLOSE OCEANFRONT FIXTURE FOR 35 YEARS YIELDS TO CITY ENFORCEMENT.

The Princess Anne Inn, a fixture on the Oceanfront for 35 years, closed Tuesday in the face of stepped-up city enforcement of the state's fire sprinkler law.

The Princess Anne was one of 33 resort inns cited by city fire officials in February for failure to comply with a 1990 law requiring inns three stories and higher to be equipped with fire sprinklers.

The others either met the Sept. 1 deadline or their owners had signed consent orders drafted by the city attorney's office promising to complete sprinkler retrofitting within a day or two.

Dawson Sterling, who heads the family-owned Princess Anne Inn, chose not to refit his aging property with the required sprinklers by the deadline and thus faced court-ordered closure.

His rationale is that the inn is to be demolished in January to make space for a new hotel on the same tract, which has been owned by the Sterling family since 1921. An outlay of $60,000 to $100,000 for a new sprinkler system would be a waste of money, he argued.

Sterling chose not to contest a city motion for an injunction filed in Circuit Court that would force him to close the doors of the Princess Anne Inn Tuesday.

Assistant City Attorney Vanessa Valldejuli was prepared to argue for the injunction, but Sterling's lawyer, Moody E. ``Sonny'' Stallings Jr., headed off a full-scale hearing. The Sterlings would offer no objection to the city's terms, he said. The inn would be closed at 5 p.m.

Sterling was granted permission to house an elderly couple - Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Crontz of Cincinnati - overnight in a first-floor room at the inn.

The Crontzes, however, opted to move to the Carriage Inn Motel, 10 blocks to the south on Atlantic Avenue, for the night. This morning they plan to push on to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The Crontzes have vacationed at the Princess Anne Inn for 30 years. They were the last guests to leave the inn Tuesday morning.

Beginning in 1990, the state required sprinklers in hotels higher than three stories. Hotel owners were given until March 1, 1997, to comply.

In the past three years, Virginia Beach fire officials repeatedly warned innkeepers of the approaching deadline. It became apparent in January that 33 Virginia Beach hotels still did not have the systems and could not meet the deadline. City innkeepers turned to local lawmakers, who passed legislation pushing back the deadline.

Despite an extension, many owners of hotels lacking sprinklers had difficulty this spring and summer finding someone to install them. Local contractors specializing in the work found they had more than they could do in the time allotted.

The catalyst for sweeping changes in the state's fire safety code for hotels, adult homes, hospitals and college dormitories was an Oct. 5, 1989, fire at the Hillhaven Rehabilitation Center on Hampton Boulevard in Norfolk, which claimed 12 lives. ILLUSTRATION: DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH/The Virginia-Pilot

Dawson Sterling, who heads the family-owned Princess Anne Inn, chose

not to refit his aging property with the required sprinklers.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu