Two veteran mainstays of Perry’s downtown retail community and one newcomer suffered significant smoke damage in Wednesday’s fire at 1215 Second St.
The fire was reported about 2 a.m. in the rear of Perry Floral and Gifts, which opened fewer than six months ago, an offshoot of the 1620 Pattee Street store bought by Denise Levan and Trish Roberts in May 2016.
The stores to the north and south, Ben’s Five and Dime and Bacon Jewelers, also sustained smoke damage and were closed for business Thursday and Friday.
“Thank you for all of the love on a very sad day,” said Jan Pattee, who owns and operates Ben’s with her husband, former Perry Mayor Jay Pattee. “We hope to be open to serve you soon.”
A sign of the community’s solidarity with its members in misfortune appeared Thursday when St. Patrick’s School Principal Eddie Diaz led a group of students downtown, armed with chalk and with messages of hope and healing for the business owners.
“Eddie Diaz and the teachers at St. Patrick’s school along with the lovely students did a chalk message to Jay and I at Ben’s Five and Dime,” said Jan Pattee. “How sweet is that?”
The Pattees, who live in one of the apartments above their store, and the occupants of the other two upstairs units have been temporarily displaced while the smoke damage is assessed and repaired. They are staying at the Hotel Pattee.
Like their neighbors to the north, Bacon Jewelers faces a big cleanup project.
“We’re okay,” said Eddie Bacon, whose family has owned and operated jewelry businesses in Perry and Boone for four generations. He said they hope to reopen soon, “but it will not be this weekend.”
“As soon as they called me, I got down there as fast as I could from Boone,” Bacon said. “You couldn’t see three feet, four feet in front of your face when I got there in the middle of the night. That’s how smoky it was.”
He said insurance is covering the employees’ wages while damage to the store’s stock is assessed, a painstaking process that could take some time.
“Every piece, either insurance will buy it from us, or they’ll hire someone to come in and clean every piece,” Bacon said. “That’s everything. We’re still working with insurance and can’t do anything until insurance figures out who’s cleaning what. We can’t do anything until the insurance is done.”
There were no injuries in the fire, which remains under investigation by the Perry Volunteer Fire Department.
