Editing Cocoanut Grove fire (section)

==Legal consequences==
{{See also|Commonwealth v. Welansky}}
Barney Welansky, whose connections had allowed the nightclub to operate while in violation of the loose standards of the day, was convicted on nineteen counts of [[manslaughter]] (nineteen victims were randomly selected to represent the dead). He was sentenced to 12–15 years in prison in 1943.<ref>{{cite web |title=Legal - Cocoanut Grove Fire |url=http://www.cocoanutgrovefire.org/home/legal |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130121134414/http://www.cocoanutgrovefire.org/home/legal |archive-date=2013-01-21 |access-date=2016-02-06 |website=www.cocoanutgrovefire.org |language=en}}</ref> Welansky served nearly four years before being quietly [[pardon]]ed by Tobin, who had been elected [[governor of Massachusetts]] since the fire. In December 1946, ill with cancer, Welansky was released from [[Norfolk Prison]] and told reporters, "I wish I'd died with the others in the fire." He died nine weeks after his release.<ref name="BGThomas19921122"/>

In the year that followed the fire, Massachusetts and other states enacted laws for public establishments banning flammable decorations and inward-swinging exit doors, and requiring exit signs to be visible at all times (meaning that the exit signs had to have independent sources of electricity and be easily readable in even the thickest smoke).<ref name = "Grant"/> The new laws also required that revolving doors used for egress must either be flanked by at least one normal, outward-swinging door, or retrofitted to permit the individual door leaves to fold flat to permit free-flowing traffic in a panic situation, and further required that no emergency exits be chained or bolted shut in such a way as to bar escape through the doors during a panic or emergency situation.<ref name = "official"/> Jack Thomas of ''[[The Boston Globe]]'' wrote in his front page 50th-anniversary article "the Licensing Board ruled that no Boston establishment could call itself the Cocoanut Grove."<ref name="BGThomas19921122" /> There has never been another Cocoanut Grove in Boston.<ref name="BGThomas19921122"/><ref name="BFHS">[https://web.archive.org/web/20120507061956/http://www.bostonfirehistory.org/firestory11281942.html The Cocoanut Grove Fire - Boston Fire Historical Society]</ref>

Commissions were established by several states that would levy heavy fines or even shut down establishments for infractions of any of these laws. These later became the basis for several federal fire laws and code restrictions placed on nightclubs, theaters, banks, public buildings, and restaurants across the nation. It also led to the formation of several national organizations dedicated to fire safety.<ref name = "Grant"/>