In any event, knowing what you know now, do you think the zip ties would have raised an eyebrow from the
AHJ? I'm trying to determine if I was right in being strongly concerned about this.
Zip ties would raise eyebrows with just about anyone. Even these weren't in the paths of
egress, they'd still be bad ideas. In a fire, you can't know where a fire will happen or what will be between you and your path of
egress. Having as many paths available to you as is possible is always preferred. If
AHJ saw this or became aware of it, even if these weren't paths of
egress and it wasn't against code, your
AHJ would be quickly become suspicious of what demons may lie in the rest of your building and end up earning you a far more detailed and thorough inspection of the rest of the building.
It's bizarre nonetheless that this space would not have some form of locking mechanism (either by key or by
allen wrench through a push bar), but this must be a use case that the architect hadn't foreseen or maybe the room
layout was altered after the original construction.
I'd recommend taking a few photos of the doors you have, sending them off to a few locksmiths (maybe your building already has a master key
system through a vendor who can provide you this service) and if you tell them how many doors like that you'd want to
switch over, they can pretty readily inform you of the cost of either altering the existing doors or replacing them with new ones. I'd be a little amazed if there wasn't a way to alter the existing doors with new hardware though.