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Wednesday, April 4, 2012
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Street racers halted Morning Star Staff
ROGER KNOX/MORNING STAR
Enderby Fire Department’s Capt. Dan Doorn hoses down some of the burning rubble of a 100-year-old heritage building in the 700 block of Cliff Avenue Sunday after it went up in flames earlier in the morning. The building, which opened in 1911 as the Enderby Opera House, had been vacant for several years.
Fire guts Enderby heritage site ROGER KNOX Morning Star Staff
It was built in 1911, originally home to the Enderby Opera House which staged its first production at Christmas of that same year. The 100-year-old twostorey Enderby heritage building in the 700 block of Cliff Avenue was reduced to charred rubble Sunday after a fire broke out in the vacated building at around 2 a.m. “This is a big part of our town’s history, and it’s very, very, very sad to see,” said Joan Cowan, curator of the Enderby Museum, who gathered to watch a handful of Enderby Fire Department firefighters mop up the blaze
just after noon Sunday. Cowan said the opera house was built by Samuel Polson and was used strictly for opera, plays, musicals, choirs and local choirs for the remainder of its first decade. By the 1920s, opera was no longer popular and the building became known as The Coliseum, said Cowan, housing silent movies until Enderby opened a regular theatre to show talking pictures. The Knights of Pythias service club took over the structure and used it as a community hall and meeting place for a number of years before it became an electronics outlet in the 1950s,
remaining as such for close to 30 years. Greyhound Bus Service was added to the building and it remained that way up until about three or four years ago. The bottom half of the building was used for commercial purposes and the top half was an apartment. Both were vacant at the time of the fire, which remains under investigation. Cowan said a new, unknown owner bought the building in 2007, but it had remained vacant. Vernon-North Okanagan RCMP said there had been issues with squatters in the facility over the years but the
building was believed to have been empty at the time of the fire. Smoke from Sunday morning’s fire could be seen all around the city. “I was delivering Morning Stars at around 6:30 and 7 a.m. up on Red Basket hill, and I saw the smoke coming straight up from a building,” said Corey Skead, 20. “For a second I thought it was the IGA (grocery store) because it’s pretty much kitty-corner from Greyhound. I walked down to Red Basket and the credit union, and saw flames shooting out of the building.” Witnesses reported the fire was coming out of the second level of the building. Enderby
fire chief Kevin Alstad said the blaze started at the southeast corner of the building, and told RCMP no one was found amid the debris. Alstad said two roommates in an adjoining apartment phoned in the report of the fire. An excavator was brought to the scene to help knock in the walls of the building, as it was deemed dangerous and at risk of falling down towards the street and a side alley. The machine was also used to go through the debris. Alstad said the cause of the fire remains undetermined due to severe damage to the structure, and the file is still being investigated.
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A case of street racing has led to a pair of Vernon teenagers having their vehicles impounded. RCMP officer noticed two vehicles northbound on Highway 97, shortly before midnight Monday, going over the 27th Street overpass at a very high rate of speed, and the officer noted that the vehicles appeared to be racing each other. “The two vehicles then accelerated, reaching speeds in excess of 150 km/h in the 90 zone,” said Vernon RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk. “Our officer activated his emergency equipment.” One of the vehicles, a 1996 grey BMW 318, pulled over and stopped by the weigh scales. The officer was able to get the plate number of the Beamer as he went by and continued on past, and stopped and dealt with the driver of the 2000 GMC Sierra pick up that was also involved. “The BMW then drove through the weigh scale lot and headed southbound back into Vernon,” said Molendyk. The Beamer and the driver were later located in Vernon by a second officer. Both drivers are 18, from Vernon, and they have been charged with excessive speeding. The two vehicles have been impounded for seven days under the legislation for street racing.