After LI Fire Kills 2 Daughters, Parents Demand Rental Code Crackdown

NOYAC, NY — The family of two young women who died in a horrific Noyac fire in August have issued a scathing call out to Southampton Town officials, demanding accountability and reforms to the town's rental code.

Lewis Wiener issued a statement to Patch: "Our daughers Jillian, then 21, and Lindsay, then 16, were killed in the fire on Spring Lane in Noyac last August. Over the months since that horrible night claimed the lives of our daughters and shattered our family irreparably, we have seen indifference, if not outright callousness, on the part of Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, Southampton Town Attorney James Burke, and other local officials."

Wiener said what he and his family learned about the fire marshal's investigation and the facts surrounding their girls' deaths was gleaned not from public oficials but instead, from the numerous interviews they gave to the media.

"No one ever had the courtesy — the basic human decency — of informing us of the facts that led to our daughters' deaths before they spoke with the media," Wiener said. "The insensitivity and callousness of the town attorney and the town supervisor is nothing short of appalling and has only added to our family's pain."

Putting his own family's situation aside, Wiener said, the question the East End community should be asking as the summer's high rental season approaches is, "Where is the expression of outrage and commitment to cracking down on illegal rentals?" Wiener said. "Where are your elected officials? Where is Jay Schneiderman? We've heard from Mr. Schneiderman the same thing that the residents of the Hamptons have heard on the issue of illegal rentals: nothing, silence, indifference," he said. "Ask yourself, as we head into the summer rental season, are we any safer this year than we were last year? Has there been and will there by any meaningful crackdown on illegal rentals? As far as we can tell, the answer is 'no'."

Residents of the East End can complain about illegal rentals but those complaints have and will continue to fall upon deaf ears, Wiener believes.

"How many other children will die because of Jay Schneiderman's and other elected officials' indifference and failure to take the issue of illegal rentals seriously? We all deserve better — our daughters deserved better," he said. "We challenge Supervisor Schneiderman to prove us wrong and to publicly state what he and his administration are doing differently this year with respect to illegal rentals. We suspect we will hear nothing."

Schneiderman responded to a request for response from Patch: "The Wieners are understandably still stricken with grief over the loss of their daughters last August," he said. "I personally called Mr. Wiener after the tragedy to express my deepest condolences. As a parent myself, it is hard to imagine the depth of grief they are experiencing. The town takes seriously the enforcement of our rental laws and other regulations and will continue to do so. As town supervisor, public safety is, and always has been, my highest priority."

Town Attorney James Burke also spoke with Patch: The fire, he said, was "the saddest thing that happened since I've been in the town attorney's office."

Burke said after the fire, he and Southampton Town Chief Fire Marshal John Rankin, along with the Wieners' attorney Andy Alonso and friends of the Wieners spent hours looking through the charred ruins for a necklace the girls had given Alisa Wiener, their mother.

Rankin, he said, found the necklace.

The home, Burke said, "was horrendous. The idea that anybody got out alive was amazing. It was behind horrible — the whole place was charred, black — everything was charred."

He added: "You don't forget what you saw, opening that door. Outside, was beautiful Noyac in the summer. Then you opened the door into the gates of hell."

Burke said he has complete sympathy for the Wiener family. He said one critical problem during the fire was that backup batteries were missing from the fire detectors. "Those girls would probably be alive if there were backup batteries," he said. The smoke detectors, which were wired, did not function during the fire, he said.

Burke said he lost his brother, a member of the FDNY, on 9/11. "This is not something I take lightly," he said. Burke said any information Alonso asked for, he was given; Burke said he even asked if reports should be sent directly to the Wieners but Alonso said to give them to him and he'd pass along the information.

Fire officials have said that the fire likely started in the outdoor kitchen but no definitive cause has been determined, Burke said.

Burke said again that the "brutal" tragedy shouldn't have happened and wouldn't have, had the smoke detectors been working. The backup batteries were essential, he said, because when the fire broke out, it cut off the electricity so any wired smoke detectors wouldn't work.

Lew Weiner woke to the sound of breaking glass as windows were blown out from the flames, Burke said. "The girls were already in deep trouble by that point."

In November, the Wiener family filed a lawsuit against the owners of the illegal vacation property, as well as two online rental companies, stating that a lack of functioning smoke alarms led to the tragedy.

According to a complaint filed on Nov. 15 in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, the fire on Aug. 3 caused the deaths of Jillian Wiener, 21, and Lindsay Wiener, 19. The lawsuit was filed by Melville attorney Andres Alonso of Alonso Krangle LLP and Martin Grossman of the New York-based law office of Robert A. Cardali, P.C. against the owners of the home on Spring Lane, Pamela and Peter Miller, 3 Spring Lane LLC, and Homeaway.com Inc., and VRBO Holdings, Inc.

"They were two shining lights who brought joy to everyone they encountered," the suit said. "Their loss cannot be measured. . . The Wiener family is left with a nightmare from which they cannot wake."

The girls' parents, Alisa and Lew Wiener are "brokenhearted," the suit said; their brother Zachary is "haunted by their loss and the notion that the girls could not be saved."

According to the suit, the rental home was unsafe, with no working fire alarms, smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors — and an outdoor kitchen, which had not been inspected, was not properly wired, and which was not compliant, that had been installed by the Millers.

The home did not have the required rental permit, town officials told Patch after the blaze.

The complaint included a copy of the VRBO reservation, which stated that the home had a fire extinguisher, smoke detectors outside each bedroom door and in each bedroom, and carbon monoxide detectors outside each bedroom door and inside each bedroom.

Those representations, the suit said, "were false. . .the representations were particularly dangerous in that in some instances, there were what appeared to be smoke, or carbon monoxide detectors. . .lulling plaintiffs into a false sense of security. In fact, these 'alarms' were nothing more than the worthless carcasses of non-functioning alarms that had no power, had been disconnected, had their batteries removed, or were left with useless, lifeless batteries."

Had the Wiener family been informed, they would have not risked their daughters' lives by staying at the home, the suit said.

The Wiener family was "destroyed," the complaint states. "Two young women will never have the chance to fully realize their great promise and left Alisa, Lew and Zach Wiener fractured in ways that can never be mended."

A spokesperson for VRBO did not respond to a request for comment at the time the suit was filed. Edward Burke, Jr., attorney for the Millers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Andy Alonso, attorney for the Wiener family, wrote a letter to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney in early October, demanding answers as to why the office hadn't investigated the fire.

"The DA's homicide bureau is investigating this tragic fire," a representative for Tierney said Thursday. "However, we can't comment further since this is an ongoing investigation."

In August, Ryan Murphy, public safety and emergency management administrator for Southampton Town, said the investigation had honed in on an area in the home.

"The focus of the investigation is to try to determine the cause and origin of the fire," he said. "This far, the investigation seems to indicate that the outdoor kitchen area is the most likely origin of the fire."

The home had no valid rental permit, meaning that there had been no inspection of the property to ensure safety, Southampton Town officials told Patch.

Wiener, 60, his wife Alisa, 52, and his son Zachary, 23, as well as his daughters, were vacationing from Potomac, Maryland, Southampton Town police have said. The children slept on the second floor, and the parents slept on the first floor. Lewis Wiener awoke to the sound of glass breaking around 3:35 a.m. and screamed for his family to get out, police said.

He and his wife escaped the burning home, police said. When they realized the children hadn’t exited the house, Wiener tried desperately to gain entry back in. Flames prevented him from getting back inside, police said. The couple's son Zachary escaped out of a second-story window, police said.

Wiener previously told Patch that the vacation was meant to be a time of joy for his family, a time of making memories, as he is battling inoperable pancreatic cancer.

"Tragically, the two daughters were unable to escape," police said.

The town issued 29 violations each to Pamela and Peter Miller as a result of conditions identified during the investigation, Murphy said. The Wieners' attorney maintained those issues included smoke detectors that had no batteries or were disconnected.

"The property owners are currently in court still on those charges. I cannot speak to matters currently under litigation," Murphy said.

Burke, Jr., attorney for the Millers, told Patch in a prior interview: "It is impossible to put into words the magnitude of this tragedy nor describe the devastation. But the one thing I can say is that the Millers did not tamper or alter fire alarms or electrical wiring within this house, for this house was their home."

Burke didn't comment on whether the kitchen was up to code, or on questions about whether the Millers had insurance, responding: "Nothing further at this time."

In his letter, Alonso said Lew Wiener, when awoken Aug. 3 by the sound of breaking glass, was "confronted with a wall of flame coming from the outdoor kitchen located on the deck connected to the home." Wiener suffered burns trying to rescue his daughters, while his wife suffered smoke inhalation, the letter said. Their son was also burned.

"These promising young women were robbed of their lives, which held so much promise," the letter said.

In the weeks and months since the fire, thousands have reached out to support the Wiener family during their darkest hour. Wiener, speaking with Patch, described his girls and the many lives they touched.

Murphy told Patch in August that while the home was rented for the vacation, there was no rental permit on file for the home, and therefore, the property was not inspected. He also said he believes there was "a violation on record from the building department," but did not specify what that violation was.

Murphy said he didn't know how the rental was conducted."I don't know how they engaged that rental," he said.

However, firefighters at the scene did not recall hearing the fire alarms going off, he said.Murphy said property owners "will be held accountable for renting without the benefit of a permit."

Murphy said town officials work diligently to make sure the town's rental code is enforced, but with the proliferation of home-sharing sites, "it's a bit like whack a mole."

"We might take one of these and bring it into compliance and then two pop up. It's a never-ending search," he said.

Of the fire, Murphy said, "It's a tragic situation. Had there been a rental permit on the property, perhaps additional safety standards might have been in place that could have made this preventable. But," he added, "you can do everything right and still have an accident. It's just nice to be able to say you checked all the boxes."