Fire at Glacier 3000: restaurant owner acquitted

Fire at Glacier 3000: restaurant owner acquitted Keystone-SDA

The restaurant owner accused of setting fire through negligence to the Botta restaurant at Glacier 3000 in Les Diablerets, canton Vaud, has been acquitted. The court found that she had not breached her duty of care by failing to consult the instructions for use for ten new fondue stoves.

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The prosecution had requested a 30-day suspended fine of CHF50 ($63). The prosecution argued that the accused had not properly trained her staff to handle the new stoves and that, as a result, one employee had stacked a stove with a plastic tank on top of another stove that had not been turned off, causing the fire. The prosecution said the disaster could have been avoided by reading the instructions, which warned against this risk.

However, the court in Vevey did not accept these arguments when it read out its verdict on Tuesday. The public prosecutor will lodge an appeal.

The fire broke out on the night of September 18-19, 2022. It destroyed the self-service restaurant on the third floor, the restaurant on the fourth floor and the lift machinery.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

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