Rooming house owner fined $75,000 after fatal fire

Konstantin Lysenko was fined for violations found in the illegal rooming house.

Thestar.com
Aug. 26, 2015
By David Rider

The owner of an illegal Toronto rooming house where a woman died in a 2013 fire has been fined $75,000.

Konstantin Lysenko, owner of 189 Sheridan Ave., was found guilty by a provincial offences court of multiple fire code violations at the house where Alisha Lamers, 24, died in her basement apartment.

A City of Toronto news release says Lysenko was fined $60,000 plus a $15,000 victim surcharge. He will also be on probation for 18 months with conditions including not possessing or managing a rental property.

The fire started on a cool November night. Josh Schaefer, 25, had stepped outside the basement apartment, in the College and Dufferin Sts. area, for a cigarette when a neighbour yelled “Fire!”

He found the door to his apartment aflame with his girlfriend, Lamers, sleeping inside. He yelled to her through steel bars across the window but she was trapped, and stopped responding amid thick smoke.

A city inspection found violations including broken and missing smoke alarms and lack of the required two exits per floor. The rooming house was not registered with the city.

Lysenko and his Canada Corp. could have faced up to $1 million in fines, the Star reported after the fire.

The city news release quotes Lamers’s mother, Janet Lamers Moore, as saying: “We have been waiting 21 months to hear the outcome. Hearing this will be very healing for me. It was so important to us to have the landlord held responsible for his part. Thank you again to your staff and to the three firefighters who carried Alisha out.”

Toronto fire services is reminding anyone with concerns about the fire safety of a building that they can call 416-338-9107 and request an inspection.