Sigh, its not an 'illegal' haven it just isn't up to code. Which, unfortunately, you cannot sign a waiver that says I won't hold anyone responsible for me burning up in a fire here. And the Mtn View is kind of well known for being unhelpful in these regards.
I tried scanning the article to find out what made it illegal, and was fairly disappointed to find that (once again) I'd been lured by a sensationalist headline.
Yeah, the headline did make it sound like hackers were protecting The Pirate Bay headquarters or something... we should be able to downvote bad titles :)
"What it does not have, according to city officials, are things that would make it an office. It doesn’t have enough fire exits, sprinklers or wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, as required by city regulations."
Obviously these guys are up to no good with their illicit "hacking." Isn't that code for "making meth"? And a Dojo!? They probably run Fight Club style events too.
Software developers are known troublemakers. If you don't keep an eye on them, they'll type away all night optimizing code and drinking caffeine.
Not being up to code makes it illegal to occupy the building. I'm not quite sure why the NY Times would leave something like that out; it's possible that code violations are more prevalent in NY and thus the import need not be explained.
The title is supposed to tell us whether the article is worth reading. Most anyone who cares about Hacker Dojo already knew about their retrofit funding problem; there's little fresh news here.
It's funny to contrast to Noisebridge, which seems to me must surely be illegal by all sorts of codes. I wonder if the equivalent authorities in SF just have more important things to worry about.
Ironically, at Noisebridge they are wheelchair accessible and have sprinklers in the ceiling. The wheelchair/scooter users visit regularly. I'm 99% sure the sprinklers were already installed when they moved in. A lot of build-out work was done when moving to the current location.
Yes, the Dojo got thwacked by the common practice that every city government in California has at least which is that when you sign a new lease you have to bring the space up to the current code. This problem is compounded by the fact that 'the code' keeps changing, in part because of new issues (like earthquake knowledge gained from new earthquakes) and in part because they don't feel they have enough money (an example of that is that the 'blue' color required for outlining handicapped spaces changed slightly which required folks to repaint existing striping).
A more accurate headline would be 'Haven struggles to stay open while updating to latest codes', having just gone through the process of securing new facilities for our company one of the things in the lease was a requirement that the landlord turn over the space already compliant with the latest codes. Remember this story if you are out leasing space (if you're subleasing you get a pass though, so sometimes that makes it a better deal)
