Small assembly spaces

[Sifu]

Part one....A confections maker has a small B space (<2500^ft) on a floor of a building. His main use is making candy and selling it wholesale. They propose to take the rest of the floor (about 3000^ft), add a small retail area to sell their candy, add a small kitchen (no cooking) for drink prep, coffee, liquor, beer etc., and two small sitting areas for the people to sit and drink their drinks and eat there candy. They are proposing the retail area and sitting areas as meeting IBC 303.1.2 for small assembly spaces. The combined occupant load of the sitting and retail areas is less than 50. The occupant load of the B space is 9.
My normal use of 303.1.2 is for conference rooms in an office building, allowing them as B occupancies. (I have allowed several small conference rooms to still be considered as a B even though the aggregate is 50 or more based on this language). But I find no code that would prevent this provision from being applied to this condition, thus allowing the occupancy to remain a B, with "accessory" assembly spaces to that B. Am I missing something?

Part two.....If the above scenario is permitted, what would the limitations be? How many such "rooms and spaces" could exist in the occupancy? 303.1.2 only says "the following rooms and spaces", with no aggregate limitation. So could they have six rooms or spaces, each with an occupant load less than 50 and still be a B occupancy? Logic dictates no, language is less definitive. Clearly, you would have a bar with an occupant load of 294 people.....but if each space is less than 49 does it not meet 303.1.2?

To be very clear, we are not talking about mixed use is provided in 508. The proposal explicitly excludes that by the use of 303.1.2 and classifying them all as B. So do not conflate the "accessory" provisions of 508 with this proposal.

Right now I am leaning on 303.1 & 303.1.1 to say that a space used for drinking or assembly is an A2, but that if the space used for the assembly purpose (the aggregate space) exceeds 49 occupants it could no longer be a B occupancy, and revert to an A2. This would allow the proposal with 49 total assembly occupants but stop someone from pushing the envelope (NEVER HAPPEN RIGHT?). Not sure if I should include the B occupants in the A occupants to get to the 49 or not.

Thoughts?

 

[cda]

Good question

 

[cda]

My take is where they assemble is a total of over 50

You are an Assembly A

I would say the hook is the word "SPACE" in the sentence.

So in your picture, if there was just a little more area in one of the two rooms, pushing the occupant load over 50, It is and Assembly

Now It may be case by case. If you take this and put it in say a large office building space, and had multiple rooms like this, I would not add them together and make it an A

I would for your picture because the rooms are all in one space/ area,,,,, Like a starbuck with multiple rooms

 

[ADAguy]

As noted, the key is your use of the "A" word and avoiding >49 occupants in combination.

 

[mark handler]

You have opened up all the rooms, therefore they are one, A-2.
Replace the doors and openings, and i could go, B

 

[Tim Mailloux]

You have opened up all the rooms, therefore they are one, A-2.
Replace the doors and openings, and i could go, B

I would agree that the two seating areas and the lobby are all open to one another and they would really act as one large assembly type of space with an occupant load well over 50 people. I also noticed that no occupant load was assigned to the lobby and whats with the fractional occupants in these room? 22.6 = 23 people.

If these rooms are truly A2 spaces someone should also double check the plumbing counts.

 

[Sifu]

I did not go into the issues concerning the lobby, this was a pre-application question that was more conceptual, meaning I need to address the elephant in the room first, then I can get into the particulars. I think I have come to the conclusion that it can remain a B if the combined loads of the A use spaces is 49 or less. The B use spaces would not contribute.

The original question was something like this:
Can the dining rooms remain an accessory A-2 to the B if they are separated by the B use lobby? My answer was "hold up, what is an "accessory A-2"? I said we needed to table the question pending the larger discussion on that concept. So now I think we can have the lobby discussion. If the lobby is or will be used as seating or gathering it will be included in the A category. If it is a circulation path I could go B. As shown it appears to be A, but I bet that will change. Of course this will probably lead to an alternate request and be taken out of my hands anyway!

 

[cda]

The book says room or space

I would say all the rooms are in the Space.


an empty area that is available to be used:

 

[ADAguy]

Ditto