SMFD Inspection Readiness

The Recording Club · 1660 9th Street, Santa Monica · owner Taji · built 2026-09-11 · register card trs-fire-marshal-inspection on oversight.gregspero.com

📄 What the inspector asks for on the day

📞 Booking it

🗓️ How it actually gets scheduled

You do not book it. SMFD comes on the annual permit cycle.
Keep the annual fire permit current and the inspector follows.
Permits expire 05/01 or 11/01. Apply 15 business days ahead.
Call Fire Prevention to confirm the cycle and ask when the visit lands.
Counter: 333 W. Olympic Dr., 2nd Floor, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Call 310-458-8915 Email Fire Prevention Annual permit, how to Pay an invoice

💵 What it costs

$310.55 annual permit, approved production facility.
$407.10 annual permit, public assembly under 300 occupants.
$207.70 annual commercial inspection, suite 2,001 to 5,000 sq ft.
$402.95 reinspection.
Fiscal year 2026 to 2027, effective 07/01. Which line applies turns on the occupancy call.

Santa Monica fee schedule

🚨 If it fails

The inspector writes a notice of violation with a reinspection date the fire code official sets.
Reinspection bills at $402.95.
A fire code violation is an infraction to $250 or a misdemeanor to $1,000, per violation.
Work done without a required permit: the permit fee plus an investigation fee plus a penalty fee, each at least 100 percent of the permit fee.
Days allowed to correct: confirm with SMFD Fire Prevention, nothing is published.

CFC 113.3 SMMC 8.04.010

⚠️ The one question that decides the money

🏷️ Group B or Group A

An assembly space under 50 occupants is Group B, per CBC 303.1.1.
But CBC 303.1 names production studio sound stages under Group A.
A-1 is with a live audience (303.2). A-3 is without one (303.4).
Santa Monica does not amend CBC Chapter 3. The state rule is the whole rule.
50 occupants arrives at roughly 350 sq ft of chairs only, 250 sq ft standing, or 750 sq ft of tables and chairs.

CBC Chapter 3

🚿 Why the answer is expensive

The permit fee gap between B and A is about $100. Ignore it.
The real exposure is sprinklers. SMMC 8.44.050(a)(2) requires a full system on a change to a more hazardous occupancy.
Table 8.44-A ranks Group A at 2 and Group B at 6. B to A is more hazardous.
So a Group A reclassification pulls the sprinkler trigger.
Know the building's current sprinkler status before inviting the question.

SMMC 8.44.050

✅ One risk that turned out not to exist

Los Angeles requires a fire-department-stamped floor plan whose approval date matches the posted capacity sign.
Santa Monica has no such rule. Not in 8.40, not in 8.44, not in 8.12.
The only duty is the state posted sign at 50 or more occupants, CFC 1004.9.
SMFD may still ask for a diagram as a permit condition. Confirm with SMFD Fire Prevention.

CFC 1004.9

📚 Sources

🔁 Rebuilt 2026-09-11 after a jurisdiction error.

The first build assumed the City of Los Angeles: LAFD, the LA Municipal Code, the FIMS portal, LA Office of Finance fees.
The studio is at 1660 9th Street, Santa Monica, confirmed inside city limits by the U.S. Census geocoder.
Every Los Angeles citation, contact, portal and fee is gone.
Re-verification against the 2025 code corrected eight section numbers that moved since the 2022 edition.
Two rules the first build blamed on Los Angeles are state requirements that apply here: extinguisher mounting heights, and the stage and back-of-house extinguisher list.

🔥 Fire inspection readiness, Santa Monica FD