Bill aimed at enticing fire sprinklers in trouble

COLUMBIA — COLUMBIA — While legislation enticing businesses and homeowners to install fire sprinklers saw some movement today, it faces a tough road to approval.

Powerful Charleston-area lawmakers lent their support earlier this year to a fight first waged by their counterparts from Greenville. Still, a House version of the bill — passed by that chamber in February — languishes in a Senate committee.

A Senate subcommittee on Tuesday moved forward a bill with much lower incentives than the House version. But some procedural guidelines will make it tough for the bill to become law before summer adjournment in four weeks.

The legislation garners supporters from across the state with several tragic examples: the Sofa Super Store fire last June that claimed the lives of nine Charleston firefighters, a 2004 fire at a Comfort Inn in Greenville that killed six people and the house fire in October at Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., where seven South Carolina college students died.

Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, acknowledged that despite that statewide support, turning the incentives into law faces 'an uphill battle.'

For more on the story, check out Wednesday's editions of The Post and Courier.