The manager of a restaurant on Cannes' Île Sainte-Marguerite has been formally reprimanded after footage surfaced showing staff using sparkling candles, a device banned on the island and implicated in a deadly nightclub fire in Switzerland earlier this year, according to Nice-Matin.
The video, filmed in June, showed the lit sparklers being carried through the restaurant, the same kind of device blamed for the New Year's Eve blaze at Le Constellation, a bar in the Swiss resort town of Crans-Montana, where 40 people died and around 120 were injured after a sparkler ignited flammable material near the ceiling. Investigators in Switzerland later opened a negligent manslaughter inquiry against the bar's managers over the tragedy.
Given the well-documented risk, the devices are prohibited across Île Sainte-Marguerite, and the restaurant's management has now been formally warned to comply with the ban going forward.