Well, I went to Colonie Center this afternoon to dine at The Cheesecake Factory, a restaraunt that recently moved into the mall. Here’s a recap of the mall system:
Well, somewhat to my surprise, the alarm system in the restaraunt is NOT the same as the mall’s alarm system. The system in the restaraunt is an EST Quickstart with voice evac (didn’t see any voice evac controls, just a Quickstart annunciator in the entryway). I say this because the signals are wall and ceiling-mount Genesis speaker/strobes (white w/o “FIRE” letterng), smokes are few and far between and there are dual-action pulls.
Well, I rementioned the mall’s alarm system because something interesting happened as we were getting ready to leave. After getting our bill, I noticed a bright flash out of the corner of my eye. Well, I look through the windows in the restaraunt out into the mall to see the RSS on the wall flashing away! Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear any tones or messages in the restaraunt. The alarm system in the restaraunt is not connected to the mall’s alarm system, as the alarm system in the restaraunt never went off (no abnormal conditons either). So, we paid and left. As we were walking to our cars, the fire department started to arrive. We also passed this loading dock whose doors were open and it sounded like there was an AS going off in continuous inside, although I never saw any strobes going off.
So, it was an interesting afternoon. I just wish I could have been able to have heard the audio part of the mall’s alarm system.