Pizza restaurant fire takes another slice of Selkirk Avenue commerce away

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This article was published 24/02/2025 (253 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Selkirk Avenue building that houses a pizza joint went up in flames Sunday — the latest blow to a business zone that has long been the economic heart of the North End.

On Monday, partially frozen pools of soot-blackened water and the lingering smell of smoke stood as evidence of the fire that burned through the building’s roof, leaving 99 Cent Pizza’s windows shattered and its interior exposed.

Lifelong area resident George Pirrie took in the sight of the two-storey building from across the street as he drank his morning coffee with friends.

“We saw it last night. I came here about 6:30 or 7 p.m., and you couldn’t see through the smoke,” Pirrie, 80, said. “Flames were shooting out of the windows; out of the roof.”

The building, located on the corner of Selkirk and Salter Street, contains commercial and apartment suites.

Fire crews were first sent to the building at 1:30 p.m. Everyone inside escaped before firefighters arrived and were able to return to their suites after crews cleared the scene, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said in a news release.

Crews returned to the building about two hours later — just after 4 p.m. — and found a fire that was too intense to fight from inside. Firefighters set up aerial ladders to douse the flames from above and remained on scene into Sunday night, the WFPS said.

Nobody was injured, but an emergency social services team was sent to help displaced people, the City of Winnipeg said.

A Winnipeg Police Service officer stood watch as contractors boarded up the restaurant’s front and rear entrances Monday morning.

James MacKinnon, who lives just north of the building, said the power in his Pritchard Avenue home was cut off for four hours as firefighters worked to battle the flames. Acrid smoke wafted into his home, agitating his asthmatic cat, he said.

“We shut all the windows, and it was still coming in somehow,” MacKinnon said. “It was ridiculous.”

The 85-year-old man, who has lived in the area for more than six decades, said the lane between his home and the building has long been a magnet for trouble.

“People fight there for years; they pull all the garbage out in the back,” he said.

Investigators have not determined the cause of the fires, but both Pirrie and MacKinnon said the area is rife with gangs, drugs, crime and desperate people.

Mynarski Coun. Ross Eadie lamented the loss of the pizza shop, which he said was a popular stop for school-aged children craving a cheap snack.

Eadie, who sits on the board of the Selkirk Avenue BIZ, said every business lost is a blow to the community.

He said Selkirk, from Main Street to McPhillips Street, is littered with vacant properties and empty lots that further damage the neighbourhood’s reputation.

“This is a problem,” Eadie said by phone. “We have some key businesses that are staying there, but if it keeps getting worse, they’re going to leave… so it’s very worrying.”

Data collected by the Selkirk BIZ shows there were 55 businesses in the area as of September. There were 67 when Eadie joined the organization in 2010, he said.

While the number of businesses has shrunk only slightly, they’ve become less diverse. As restaurants and retailers close, they are increasingly replaced by convenience stores, the councillor said.

“They’re selling stuff that’s not good for the community, like spray paint and knives and stuff like that. That’s how they are making money,” he said.

Eadie said the area would benefit from a grocery store, but attempts to attract potential investors for such a project have fallen flat.

“It’s a good idea to try, but until we fix the social ills around there, they are not going to build,” he said.

Community minister Harvey Rempel, who works with gang-involved youth at Inner City Youth Alive, stopped by the fire scene Monday.

He described burned and vacant buildings as a blight on the North End and demoralizing for its residents.

“It does have an effect on people,” Rempel said. “It’s hard not to feel that certain neighbourhoods are being neglected.”

“The people in the inner city matter, and our history matters.”

The brick structure, at 417 Selkirk Ave., was built in 1928. The Weselake Building’s original configuration included two retail stores on the main floor and four residential apartments above, the Manitoba Historical Society states on its website.

A second business, North Star Dental, operated in the building.

Historical society head researcher Gordon Goldsborough said Selkirk Avenue was once a bustling hub of retail activity, particularly for people in Manitoba’s Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish communities.

His organization has recently undertaken a project to document the history of the various buildings along the inner-city stretch — preserving a past that might otherwise be forgotten.

“So many of them are either gone or they’re entirely different today,” Goldsborough said.

“It hasn’t been an immediate, cataclysmic event. It’s been slow; gradual. Businesses close, and it’s almost like a vicious circle — the more that close, the less likely people are to go there.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca