Tenants at burned building briefly allowed to retrieve belongings
EL CENTRO — Business owners operating in or near the Rehkopf Building, former home of Brooks Jewelry, have been locked out of their businesses since a third-alarm fire on Feb. 11 condemned the building.
On Thursday morning, owners of the three businesses on the North Sixth Street side of the building, El Dorado Printing, Josie’s Lingerie and Bertha’s School Uniforms, were briefly allowed to enter their business and retrieve their merchandise.
During the past two weeks in which downtown businesses have been blocked off, affected business owners have pushed against city officials to allow them to get inside their stores.
The decision to let the three owners inside on Thursday was based off an expert opinion received from an engineer and San Diego-based contractor who were brought in, Larry Bratton, the building’s owner, explained.
“They said there was no reason to not let these people have their stuff,” Bratton said. “Luckily, between the engineer and the other people, they said ‘Yknow, we don’t see a problem with these people getting their stuff, let them get their stuff. Everybody is hurting.”
An opinion has not been rendered yet in relation to demolition.
Bratton predicted that he’ll be given the decision whether to pay the cost to repair the fire damage in order to continue business at the building.
The fire, which authorities consider suspicious in origin, was largely contained to the iconic downtown building’s second floor, resulting in the ceiling’s collapse. “The roof is gone,” Bratton said. “It sucked down into the second floor.”
He said officials plan to close the building down for another week. Cleanup crews and fire department personnel were on scene at about 8 a.m. Thursday in order to remove debris from the building’s second floor.
At 10:07 a.m., Bertha Villarreal, owner of Bertha’s School Uniforms, received a sudden call stating she would be allowed an hour to retrieve her store’s merchandise.
“They just let us know, really quick, that we had to get our stuff out,” Villarreal said. “They just called us and told us, ‘Get here as fast as you can and get your stuff out.’”
With the help of her family, Villarreal was able to load up her merchandise, most of which was affected by water damage, and transport it to her El Centro home. “A lot of the merchandise was still wet, but we were able to get it out,” Villarreal, who has owned her business for 20 years, said. “I was in a hurry, in a rush, to try and get my stuff because it’s my job; it’s my life.”
Villarreal had been contacting city officials since the fire in an attempt to get into her store.
“It was tough because we had our merchandise here,” Villarreal said. “We can’t work because all my stuff is here. All my people were calling me for things and I couldn’t really fulfill the orders because all my stuff was here. I couldn’t’ really do anything about it.”“
Unfortunately for Villarreal, it was the second time she’s been forced to relocate. She was forced out of the Old Town Plaza due to the 7.2 Easter earthquake in 2010. Villarreal said the city hasn’t been of much help relocating from the Brooks building, where she’s operated for the past nine years.
“The city was trying to help by giving us loans, but the interest rate that they’re offering is 18 percent,” Villarreal said. “That’s really high. That’s not going to help. That’s actually going to put us in more of a hole.”
Finding a new business space wasn’t on the forefront of Villarreal’s mind, however, as she had a home filled with merchandise she had yet to go through.
“When I get home, I’ll decide what’s good and what’s not,” Villarreal said. “If I stop working, they won’t help me because I don’t qualify for any assistance, so this is my job. It has been for 20 years. How else am I going to pay my bills and for food?”
Once the owner of Josie’s Lingerie retrieved all that she could, the store’s front was then blocked off with large wooden panels.
The main portion of the Brooks building housed El Dorado Printing & Embroidery, as well as the Bujwah Strangers clothing company and the Stitch Factory embroidery shop.
Luckily, more than 100 pre-ordered high school letterman jackets were able to be retrieved, as they were stored in an area away from the water damage.
However, a large pile of sample jackets affected by water damage was stacked on the sidewalk outside the building. Jacob Zavala, co-owner of El Dorado, and Bratton on Thursday worked together to clean up the pile of damaged jackets. Even after the pile of jackets was cleared, Zavala and Bratton continued to pick up trash and debris off the sidewalk in an attempt to clean the area as best as they could.
Bratton began leasing the space to Zavala in October 2016.
“Jacob got what he could get,” Bratton said. “There’s some remnants left and what have you, but he got hit pretty bad. It’s sad because these businesses were doing all right. It wasn’t a matter of what we were doing. I worked hard keeping the building clean and Jacob did a lot of neat stuff. He’s got to find him a place to go now and reset.”