Not closing Point Douglas business after fire: owner
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/10/2011 (5477 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Gateway Industries owner Sheldon Blank says media reports that he’s closing his Point Douglas business and leaving the property are untrue.
Blank said Wednesday night’s fire destroyed only the paper mill operation — which had been idle — on the site but he intends to re-open his other business ventures on Monday.
“Whatever anybody said about me closing the business is not correct,” Blank said this morning. “The business will continue.”
Media reports today have speculated that the 17-acre property will be taken over for a variety of possible developments — recreation or residential — but Blank said there’s no truth to that.
“What I told (the Free Press) is accurate,” Blank said. Other media “reported all kinds of things that I didn’t say. Whatever anyone said about me not running the business or closing the business, is not correct.”
Blank said the Winnipeg Fire Department will not allow him to re-open his other businesses — Gateway manufactures bar soap, shampoo and conditioners for private label sale to hotels and a paper conversion business selling product to cardboard box manufacturers and printers.
Preliminary estimates place the value of the damage caused by the fire at a minimum of $1 million. Blank said he doesn’t have insurance and has no plans to restart paper mill production.
“The paper mill operation, that’s not going to be restarted… That I said,” Blank said. “We’re just waiting for the fire department to let us go back into operation,” for everything else.
Blank said he has no immediate plans for the portion of the site that was destroyed in the fire. He said his immediate objective is to see if anything can be salvaged and then to clean up the fire site.
Blank said his plant had been the target of several arsons in the past and he’s convinced the Wednesday night fire was also deliberately set.
“We’re positive someone broke into the mill and started this fire,” Blank said. “Every time there’s been a fire in this place, every single time, we were able to apprehend, on the spot or catch later on, the people that started it.”
The fire department said Thursday the damage was so extensive it may not be possible to determine the cause.
Blank said that he won’t be laying off his 10 employees because of the fire, adding they remain on the payroll even though his business is temporarily closed.
Blank said he was upset about online comments that suggested he started the fire and others that accused him of poor business practices.
“It’s absolutely atrocious but that’s what I’ve had to put up with.”
Blank said that he hopes to retire one day but the manufacturing businesses on the site will continue after that.
aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca