August 26, 2021 Vol. 21, No. 34
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Fire Causes Damage to Sunbury Family Store
By Jeff Green ast Friday night (August 20), fires were started at the diesel pump and in the proposed Cannabis Store at the Sunbury Family Store at Battersea Road and Moreland-Dixon Drive in Sunbury. Mike Healey, who owns the store with his partner Angie Clarke, said on Monday that it looks like the fires were started by bottles filled with gasoline that were tossed at the diesel tank and through the window into the still empty space where the cannabis store is set to open in 45 days. “When I got here (on Friday Night) the diesel pump was on fire. It is very lucky that they threw it at the diesel pump and not the gas pump which is next to it,” he said. Diesel is not as flammable as gasoline and the diesel fuel in the tank under the pump did not catch fire. The pump is now repaired. “There are 22,000 litres of gasoline in the tank. If they hit the gas pump and the fire spread through the lines to the tank, the whole village would have gone up.” The former owners of the store, Janet and Dwight Ritchie, still live in an apartment located above the convenience store (middle section) of the sprawling building, and they were unharmed by the fire. “They are pretty shaken up by it,” said Healey. The fire did send smoke into other parts of the store, causing catastrophic smoke damage to all of the clothing and footwear in the store. The Sunbury Family Store is renowned for its work shirts and pants, and rubber boots, and Healey and Clark, who purchased the business in February, had kept that clothing line going, as well as adding a full new line of clothing, Har-
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ley-G's streetwear “All of the clothing is a write-off, that's over $100,000 in inventory,” Healey said, “I'm not happy.” The Harley-G clothing was intended to be one of the highlights of the grand opening festivities at the store, which are still scheduled for this Saturday, August 28th. “We will bring in some new Harley-G clothing for Saturday,” said Healey. The store did open on the weekend, but was closed on Monday for a cleanup and re-opened on Tuesday. A crew from Service Masters removed the clothing and anything else with smoke damage and taped up the damaged sections of the store on Monday afternoon. The section of the Sunbury Family Store where pizza, sandwiches and baked goods are made as well as the grocery and variety store sections did not suffer any damage. An OPP report about the fire was released on Saturday (August 21) It runs as follows: On August 20, 2021 at approximately 11:25pm, officers from the Frontenac Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) along with South Frontenac Fire and Rescue were called to a business located on Battersea Rd., in South Frontenac Township, for a structure fire. South Frontenac Fire Rescue extinguished the fire quickly but the business sustained damage to an outer wall and a gas pump. The fire has since been deemed suspicious in nature. Frontenac OPP is continuing to investigate the circumstances involving the fire. Anyone with information regarding this fire are asked to contact the Frontenac Detachment of the OPP at 613-372-1932
or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) Mike Healey has also put up a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of any person or persons related to the fire, The funds will be handled by the OPP. Community groups, including the Sunbury Lions Club, have stepped in to sup-
port the store, and a Gofundme page is reportedly being set up. Early this summer, on June 22, a suspicious fire in an apartment in the same building as the General store in Battersea was contained by South Frontenac Fire crews, causing limited damage. A Battersea resident was arrested in connection to that fire. ■
Ontario Law Enforcement Torch Run
Mould Problem Becomes More Expensive Than First Thought - North Frontenac Council By Craig Bakay orth Frontenac Council’s regular (online) meeting was a rather uneventful affair, with a couple of delegations and a rather jarring shortfall budgeted to remediate the mould issues at the Ward 2 Shop. Public Works Manager Darwyn Sproule advised Council to approve a contract with Donaldson Construction for $421,400 (including non-refundable HST). Sproule said that the contract would require an additional $175,400 from the Infrastructure Sustainability Reserve Fund, which Council also approved. In his report to Council, Sproule said that although four contractors attended the mandatory site visit, they didn’t receive and tenders. “Donaldson Construction did submit a notice on the day of closing that they were interested in the work but couldn’t meet the schedule given other commitments,” Sproule said. “In accordance with the provisions of bylaw 94-16 (Policy to govern the purchasing of good and services) Section
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7.2 Unresponsive or Excessive Bid, we entered into negotiations with DC to achieve an acceptable bid.” The Township was successful in obtaining funding from the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program of $100,000. Sproule said that staff continue to work out of the shop with the attic area sealed restricting access and air quality testing in the work area has not identified any concerns. “But on a couple of occasions when the attic has been breached, we had to vacate the Shop and work elsewhere until air quality testing was completed and acceptable results demonstrated. “There are cost implication and impacts on the road maintenance operation (as) the road maintenance operation has to be temporarily relocated while the remediation work is being completed and this relocation is extremely difficult when we start winter operations.” He said there are also two propane tube
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(SOUTH FRONTENAC, ON) - On August 18, 2021 members of the South Frontenac and Sharbot Lake Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Detachments participated in a Law Enforcement Torch Run in Sydenham, municipality of South Frontenac.
The Law Enforcement Torch Run is an essential fundraising program for Special Olympics Ontario, which supports thousands of athletes with intellectual disabilities. For more information on the Ontario Law Enforcement Torch Run, you can visit the website at www.ontario.torchrun.org.
If you are interested in making a donation towards the Special Olympics please contact them at www.specialolympics.ca. All of the funds raised across the province help provide a local year-round program of fitness, recreation and competition for athletes with an intellectual disability. ■
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