Auburn City Council’s decision to exempt warehouse-sized buildings from the city’s 23-year-old sprinkler ordinance is quizzical, because the reason the ordinance was written remains relevant, and remains a problem.

In 1982, Auburn enacted its sprinkler policy to curb fires, obviously, and because hydrants only covered 22 percent of the city. By comparison, Lewiston hydrants cover 90 percent of the city. It’s a wide disparity.

One that, by extension, could give Lewiston a competitive advantage on big-ticket projects like warehouses larger than 200,000 cubic feet, the size Auburn councilors voted to exempt from sprinkling on Monday. (A final vote on it is set for Jan. 5.)

The reason for the vote, according to the council, is to be more “business friendly” because anecdotal evidence exists – or so we’re told – of developers who have passed Auburn for their projects because of the sprinkler mandate on their buildings.

This reasoning seems specious. Many businesses in Auburn subject to the mandate have found ways around it, according to city analyses, and rampant commercial growth during the past few years should have silenced any doubts about the city’s business friendliness.

(Some would say, given all the tax breaks given around the mall, Auburn might be a little too business friendly. But that’s beside the point.)

Safety should be the priority. If councilors want to relieve the burden of sprinklers on warehouse-sized projects, they should address the problem they intended to help mitigate: that only a fraction of the city is covered by hydrants.

Expanding the hydrant system would make a safer city, and one friendly to business, too.