Fires in Old Town Spring concern business owners
The walls are charred and trails of soot stretch upward from the doors and windows at the oncecheery Eastwind Asian Antiques.
Plywood has gone up outside as workers try to salvage the smoke-stained goods inside.
The Old Town Spring antique shop was one of three stores damaged during an Oct. 26 arson — one of five blazes that have swept through the area in less than two years.
And even though fire investigators say they have no indication that the fires are related, the blazes have left some local business people worried just as the popular shopping season approaches.
“It’s kind of shocking to have any kind of circumstance like that,” said Amy Beatty, who worked at the antique store.
The fire at 209 Midway started just after 4 a.m. on a Sunday when someone tossed a Molotov cocktail into the L-shaped building that houses Eastwind, The Coin Shop and Chloe’s.
Police initially responded to The Coin Shop just af-
ter 2 a.m., when the owner was drawn to the scene after an alarm went off. Once he got there, he realized there had been a break-in.
Nothing was stolen, but the intruders smashed a glass countertop. Sheriff deputies finished investigating and left about an hour later, according to a department spokesman.
But around 4 a.m., they got another 911 call — and this time the place was on fire.
Five incidents
The first of the suspicious fires came in March 2015, when the historic Wunsche Bros. Cafe & Saloon went up in flames.
No one was in the building when the fire started before 4 a.m. on a Sunday. A year and a half later, the cause of the blaze is still undetermined, according to Harris County Fire Marshal Office spokeswoman Rachel Moreno.
Founded in 1902 by Dell and Charlie Wunsche, the hamburger joint had long been a cornerstone of the historic shopping district in Spring.
When it shut down after the fire, the loss of the local tourist magnet was a tough blow for some of the surrounding stores.
In June 2015, just a few months after the Wunsche Bros. fire, Cross Track Ice House burned as well.
In that case, the cause of the blaze was clear: Video footage shows an arsonist dousing the back porch with some type of accelerant and setting the building ablaze late on a Thursday afternoon.
The crime is still under investigation, but Moreno said authorities never got any tips, even after releasing surveillance video.
The next fire was just outside of Old Town Spring, at the Amegy Bank about three miles away. In July 2015, a two-alarm fire erupted around 1 a.m.
Arson was ruled out, however; investigators determined the acciden- tal blaze was sparked by a space heater.
Then in October, the Midway fire knocked out three businesses in one swoop. That fire, too, remains under investigation.
Three days later, on Oct. 29, another arsonist torched a car in the area in the 4400 block of West Cypress Villas.
The crime was caught on camera, and within days, authorities collared Cristian Sanchez, thanks to Crime Stoppers tips.
Sanchez confessed and was charged with felony criminal mischief, according to court records.
Currently, he’s not a suspect in any of the other fires.
However, no footage from the 209 Midway fire has been released and authorities have not confirmed whether any exists.
‘A lot of people nervous’
Officials said they don’t believe a firebug is at work.
Four structure fires in the area over the course of nearly two years is not an abnormal concentration, Moreno stressed.
“We don’t feel like there’s a serial arsonist in this area,” she said.
Currently, the blazes are not being investigated as connected incidents.
“These are all separate individual investigations going on,” Moreno said. “At this time, we don’t have any reason to believe that any of them are related.”
Even so, some businesses are still on edge.
Gina Dillon, who works at Y’alls Texas Store across the street from Eastwind, sees the impact.
“It makes a lot of people nervous around here,” she said.
Part of the concern is that many of the historic structures in Old Town Spring are wood-frame buildings.
“They are all like tinderboxes,” said Beatty.
Some have responded by taking measures to protect themselves.
“We’re smart about it,” said The Loose Caboose owner Dannette Mostyn. “It does concern me, but we just take extra precautions — with insurance and security systems.”
But others seemed less concerned.
“It does not make me nervous — it just makes me sad for the people doing it,” said HollyBelle owner Holly Evans.
The fires have prompted the new store owner to contemplate getting cameras, but in the meantime she’s not worried about the effect on business.
“I don’t feel like it will slow things down especially before the holidays,” she said.
Impact on district
But the fires could slow down the area’s improvement district.
The businesses hit by the fires may not be fully up and running again for another year, according to Old Town Spring attorney Clarence Williams, who represents the local improvement district.
“That hurts our overall community, and the lack of sales from those businesses will have an impact on the Old Town Spring Improvement District because that receives a percentage of the sales tax,” he said.
“They were all very good shops. They all had good sales. They all had a following and each and every one of them will be missed.”
But Beatty is optimistic that Eastwind won’t be gone for too long. After the fire, nearby businesses helped board up the building and clean up the mess, and it’s that sense of neighborly camaraderie that gives her faith.
“We are a community, and it’s worth rebuilding in this location because of that sense of community,” she said.
“We will be back. Eastwind will be back.”