The rule the Fire Marshal built, and its codification problem

The Office of State Fire Marshal created LAC 55:V.Chapter 33 by Declaration of Emergency published in the Louisiana Register of December 20, 2025 at page 2013, effective January 1, 2026:

“This Emergency Rule is necessary to better protect the public safety by allowing the OSFM to require the registration of conveyance devices and equipment and to require annual inspections of registered devices. This Emergency Rule is effective January 1, 2026, and shall remain in effect for 180 days, or until the permanent Rule is adopted, whichever occurs first.”

“§3337. Registration of Conveyance Device Systems A. Registration Required. Pursuant to R.S. 40:1664.1 et seq. the owner of a conveyance device system, shall register the system with the Office of State Fire Marshal (OSFM).”

The proposed rule also carries a penalty the statute does not:

“G. The State Fire Marshal may assess an administrative penalty of no more than $250 per day per device against a building owner who fails to have their conveyance device system inspected annually or to display a current certificate of operation as required by R.S. 40:1464.1 et seq. and these rules.”

Be careful with that figure. The $250-per-day penalty appears in the rule text, not in R.S. 40:1646. The statute's own penalties are different: a first warning, then “fined not more than five hundred dollars or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both” for failing to comply with a second order, and for conveyance devices specifically a warning-and-order path in subsection (G).

And the rule is not codified. A Notice of Intent followed at page 2147 of the same December 2025 Register; a notice of substantive changes and public hearing appeared at page 1084 of the June 20, 2026 issue. But the current Louisiana Administrative Code Title 55, last amended August 2026, contains no Chapter 33 in Part V — the part runs from Chapter 32 (Property Protection Licensing) straight to Chapter 34 (Fire-resistant Material Applicators). The emergency rule's own 180-day life expired around June 29, 2026, and we found no renewal notice in the January to August 2026 issues.

So the honest position: the statutory duty in R.S. 40:1646 is in force; the administrative machinery around it is announced, hearing-tested, and not yet codified. Whether the emergency rule was renewed is not established.²

Who is inside the regime and who is out

The exclusions are drawn at one- and two-family dwellings. The proposed §3307(A)(1) excludes those “engaging in conveyance device systems and equipment activity in one-or two-family dwellings,” and the statute's own carve-out at R.S. 40:1646(B)(2)(a) covers “the owner of a building with two stories occupied by a single tenant wherein employees of the tenant are regularly inside of the building,” expressly not including a one- or two-family dwelling as defined in R.S. 40:1573.

A multi-unit residential building is not excluded. A condominium tower, a mid-rise with a common-element elevator, a clubhouse with a platform lift — all inside.

One further detail an association's engineer will care about: the rule carries an ASME A17.1 edition table keyed to the year the building was constructed, remodelled or altered, running from “prior to 1/1/1975” forward. An older Louisiana condominium is judged against the edition in force when its elevator was installed or substantially altered, not against the current one.

The certificate of operation “shall be displayed conspicuously in the elevator car.”

What a board can do now

• Register every device. Elevators, escalators and platform lifts, including one in a clubhouse or amenity building.
• Book an OSFM-appointed inspector, not just your service contractor. Paragraph (B)(3) requires the annual inspection to be “physically witnessed by an inspector appointed by the fire marshal.”
• Put the 2028 full-load test in the reserve plan. It is a five-year cycle with a known start date, and R.S. 9:1141.34(A)(1) requires the budget summary to state the basis on which reserves are calculated and funded.
• Keep the certificates as association records. A registration certificate, decal and certificate of operation are exactly the sort of document an owner may reasonably expect to see under R.S. 9:1141.36.
• Check the code edition your device was built to. It determines the standard you are measured against.

What to watch next

The Louisiana Register, for whether LAC 55:V.Chapter 33 is finally promulgated and whether the emergency rule was renewed. September 2026 and later issues were not yet published when we checked. Separately, the code council amended LAC 17:I.105 by Rule at page 684 of the May 2026 Register for a reason it stated plainly: “to provide reference standards for the conveyance industry in line with R.S. 40:1646 and R.S. 40:1664.1 et seq.”