Street-side food stalls, snack shops, clothing stores, small workshops… These small, ubiquitous venues not only fill the city with vibrant life but also sustain the livelihoods and daily routines of ordinary people. Yet behind this bustling facade, the safety hazards lurking in “triple-use” and “nine categories of small” venues are like hidden bombs, ready to shatter this sense of security at any moment.
With economic development, there has been a surge in “triple-use” venues—such as family-run workshops and spaces serving multiple functions—as well as “nine categories of small” venues covering areas like dining, retail, and small-scale processing. While they meet daily needs, their inherent limitations and irregular management make them high-risk areas for fires, explosions, and other safety accidents, posing a significant threat to lives and property.
Understanding Gas Safety Hazards in “Triple-Use” and “Nine Categories of Small” Venues
“Triple-use” venues refer to buildings where accommodation is illegally combined with one or more other functions—such as production, storage, or business operations—within the same space, without effective fire separation between the living area and other functional zones. These may be standalone buildings or part of a larger structure.
Common types of “triple-use” venues fall into three categories:
Family-Run Workshops: Residential buildings where collective staff accommodation is mixed with small-scale production, processing, repair activities, or storage of combustible materials, lacking necessary fire separation. An example is a small workshop operating as a “front store, back factory with living quarters.”
Commercial Spaces: Business operations combined with collective staff accommodation. This includes commercial activities within residential properties, as well as commercial premises where occupants live on-site. A typical example is a small street-side shop with “sales downstairs and living quarters upstairs.”
Food & Entertainment Venues: Collective staff accommodation set up within dining or entertainment venues without proper fire separation measures. Examples include lofts in small KTVs or restaurants used as staff dormitories.
“Nine categories of small” venues cover nine essential areas of daily life:
Small schools or kindergartens
Small hospitals or clinics
Small stores or markets
Small dining establishments
Small hotels or guesthouses
Small singing and entertainment venues
Small internet cafes
Small beauty salons or bathhouses
Small-scale production or processing enterprises
These venues are widely distributed, small in scale, and numerous, often leading to overlooked safety management and becoming weak links in safety prevention.
III. Major Hazards in Small Venues: Four Key Risks That Cannot Be Ignored
“Triple-use” and “nine categories of small” venues commonly face issues such as limited space, high occupancy, and lax management, giving rise to multiple safety hazards. These can be summarized into four key risks:
Abundance of Combustibles and Chaotic Fire Source Management:
These venues often store flammable materials like paper, fabric, plastics, and food ingredients, which can easily ignite upon contact with open flames or high temperatures. Additionally, frequent violations—such as unauthorized use of open flames, improper electrical wiring, and electrical overload—significantly increase fire risks.
Poor Evacuation Routes and Difficult Rescue Operations:
Mixed functions—accommodation, business, and storage—coupled with a lack of effective fire separation often result in narrow, obstructed, or blocked evacuation pathways. Some venues even illegally occupy fire lanes. In case of fire, smoke and heat spread rapidly, hindering escape and posing major challenges for rescue efforts.
Lack of Safety Facilities and Weak Emergency Response Capacity:
Due to size and budget constraints, many venues neglect the installation and maintenance of fire safety equipment. Issues like expired fire extinguishers, missing fire hydrants, and malfunctioning smoke detectors are common. This prevents early fire control and misses the critical window for effective intervention.
High Occupancy Density, Prone to Mass Casualties:
Cramped spaces and poor ventilation make it difficult to quickly disperse smoke and toxic gases produced in a fire, increasing the risk of poisoning and suffocation. The high density of occupants also means that any accident can easily lead to large-scale casualties.
In past safety incidents, keywords such as “gas leaks” and “combustible material ignition” have frequently appeared. The inherent vulnerabilities and management gaps in “triple-use” and “nine categories of small” venues amplify the severity of such accidents. Prioritizing gas safety and strengthening prevention measures have become urgent and critical tasks.
