Fire won’t shut down business: owner

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This article was published 22/10/2011 (5282 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gateway Industries owner Sheldon Blank says reports he’s closing his Point Douglas business and leaving the property are untrue.

Reached Friday, Blank said a fire Wednesday night destroyed only the paper mill operation — which had been idle — on the site, but he intends to reopen his other business ventures on Monday. “Whatever anybody said about me closing the business is not correct,” Blank said. “The business will continue.”

Media reports Friday speculated 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 Paramedic Service will not allow him to reopen his other businesses — Gateway makes bar soap, shampoo and conditioners for hotels and sells products to cardboard box manufacturers and printers — until it’s safe.

Damage is estimated at $1 million. Blank said he doesn’t have insurance and won’t restart the paper mill.

“The paper mill operation, that’s not going to be restarted… ,” Blank said. “We’re just waiting for the fire department to let us go back into operation,” for everything else.

Bill Clark, assistant chief of the WFPS, said firefighters combed the site Friday looking for spot fires, but he expected that work to be completed by the end of the day. Much of the rubble had to be pulled apart by heavy equipment to extinguish remaining hot spots.

“There is a lot of metal, equipment, stockpiles of paper and asphalt,” Clark said. “It was a big fire.”

Clark said only the paper mill that manufactured roofing paper was destroyed, adding the soap and paper manufacturing areas weren’t damaged.

Determining the cause will take some time, he said.

Inspectors from Manitoba Environment have been through the site and have not detected any environmental problems, as had been suspected because of the large amount of petroleum-based products strewn about the site.

Blank said he has no immediate plans for the portion of the site that was destroyed. He said his first objective is to see if anything can be salvaged and then 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 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.”

Blank said he didn’t lay off his 10 employees because of the fire, adding they remain on the payroll.

Blank said he was upset about online comments that suggested he started the fire and accused him of poor business practices.

“It’s absolutely atrocious but that’s what I’ve had to put up with.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca