George - I can't cite a code reference for you - sorry - even looked in the Fire Codes - But I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts that your Fire Marshall has an opinion (that he'll want enforced) about this; and one other source I've experienced has a final say-so is the company's insurance underwriters. I manage construction projects for a Fortune 500 company and we've found belatedly that the insurance underwriters through their engineering dept. have made demands above and beyond the codes...thus we've learned to run a few things by them first.
