[petsfed]

I dunno how much time you've spent around fire alarms, but they're required to be painfully loud. Not "permanent damage" loud, but loud enough to trigger e.g. migraines in people who suffer from them. This door had a fire alarm on it.

The university needed to control access to the facility through one secure checkpoint (that I had worked at in the past, but at this time no longer did so). They didn't want (for instance) random townies to be able to come and go via the side doors without filling out the relevant liability waivers, because it turns out screwing around in a weight room carries some risk. To say nothing of the consequences of some rando wandering in off the street and posting up in the locker room.

I was answering phone calls, helping people rent outdoor equipment. My job was not at all watching the door. But I had to deal with 19 year olds who (and I did watch this a couple times) would look directly at the sign, pause to read it, push the door open, then have an utterly shocked expression that the PAINFULLY LOUD alarm was going off. And I'd have to drop whatever I was doing, go turn off the alarm, then recompose and return to the customer that I was helping.

Please explain to me what is so objectionable about a school controlling access to its facilities.