Spooky season threatened: Haunted houses rush to meet strict El Paso fire inspection codes

Mary Jean Ehler and her husband Laurence are the owners of Forbidden Acres, a haunted trail in Montana Vista.

“Its all about safety,” said Mary Jean Ehler. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt, of course not. It’s about fun.”

For the last four years, their family has been taking their love of Halloween to a whole new level while complying with the fire inspection code.

However three weeks ago, they were denied the opportunity to file an application for a fire inspection.

“What do we do?!,” Ehler said. “What do we do?! Because they didn’t want to allow a maze or a trial.”

ABC-7 reported how the upcoming spooky season was almost put on hold for Forbidden Acres and another trail Texas Terror Trails due to their concerns about the strict fire codes.

After we reported their concerns, the county fire marshal’s office scheduled an inspection at the trail. Our ABC-7 crews were allowed to tag along.

“Everything is all fine and dandy until something happens then we all have to answer to that one building,” said El Paso County E.S.D. #2 Fire Marshal Roger Esparza. “We understand that people want to make their businesses. We understand that it’s a thriving business. We’ve seen these haunted houses before, and you’re trying, we’re going to help you out to succeed,” Esparza said.

Two weeks before they open, Forbidden Acres now has a written notice to fix a few code violations.

Mary Jean told ABC-7 she’s just glad she was able to convince the county fire marshal’s office to come out in the first place.

“We’re very much about safety,” Ehler said. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt. We just wanted to have the opportunity for (them) to come out and see our facility and see that we’re trying to do the best that we can. I’m just glad that they’re giving us the chance to improve on any issues that they see,” Ehler said.

Forbidden Trails does plan on having everything completed by their opening day of October 3.