ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago is a home rule unit of government pursuant to the 1970 Illinois Constitution, Article VII, Section 6(a); and
WHEREAS, pursuant to its home rule power, the City of Chicago may exercise any power and perform any function relating to its government and affairs including the power to regulate for the protection of the public health, safety, morals, and welfare; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago has been a model and a leader for fire prevention strategies and safety regulations pertaining to carbon monoxide levels in dwellings and buildings; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago has maintained this distinction since the time of the Great Chicago Fire, which burned from Sunday, October 8, to Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing three hundred residents and leaving more than one-hundred thousand homeless; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago has required smoke detectors in all dwellings since March 21, 1977, when the City Council of Chicago adopted the requirement by ordinance; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago has required carbon monoxide detectors in all dwellings since March 2, 1994, well before Illinois Law required the same as late as 2007; and
WHEREAS, the Council of the City of Chicago has not forgotten, nor will it ever forget Our Lady ofthe Angels school fire on December 1, 1958 which took the lives of ninety-three pupils and three nuns; and
WHEREAS, the Council of the City of Chicago passed a law requiring that a fire alarm box be installed in front of schools and other public assembly venues in the immediate aftermath of the fire at Our Lady of the Angels school; and
WHEREAS, on Sunday, August 26, 2018 a fire started in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, which killed ten children, ranging from three months to sixteen years old; and
WHEREAS, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, the fire occurred in an apartment which had no working smoke detectors and whose owner was not due in court until late September; and
WHEREAS, the loss of a sin...
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