Fire Causes Damage to Sunbury Family Store

Jeff Green | Aug 25, 2021

Last Friday night (August 20), fires were started at the diesel pump and in the proposed Cannabis Store at the Sunbury Family Store at Battersea Road and Moreland-Dixon Drive in Sunbury.

Mike Healey, who owns the store with his partner Angie Clarke, said on Monday that it looks like the fires were started by bottles filled with gasoline that were tossed at the diesel tank and through the window into the still empty space where the cannabis store is set to open in 45 days.

“When I got here (on Friday Night) the diesel pump was on fire. It is very lucky that they threw it at the diesel pump and not the gas pump which is next to it,” he said.

Diesel is not as flammable as gasoline and the diesel fuel in the tank under the pump did not catch fire. The pump is now repaired.

“There are 22,000 litres of gasoline in the tank. If they hit the gas pump and the fire spread through the lines to the tank, the whole village would have gone up.”

The former owners of the store, Janet and Dwight Ritchie, still live in an apartment located above the convenience store (middle section) of the sprawling building, and they were unharmed by the fire.

“They are pretty shaken up by it,” said Healey.

The fire did send smoke into other parts of the store, causing catastrophic smoke damage to all of the clothing and footwear in the store. The Sunbury Family Store is renowned for its work shirts and pants, and rubber boots, and Healey and Clark, who purchased the business in February, had kept that clothing line going, as well as adding a full new line of clothing, Harley-G's streetwear

“All of the clothing is a write-off, that's over $100,000 in inventory,” Healey said, “I'm not happy.”

The Harley-G clothing was intended to be one of the highlights of the grand opening festivities at the store, which are still scheduled for this Saturday, August 28th.

“We will bring in some new Harley-G clothing for Saturday,” said Healey.

The store did open on the weekend, but was closed on Monday for a cleanup and re-opened on Tuesday.

A crew from Service Masters removed the clothing and anything else with smoke damage and taped up the damaged sections of the store on Monday afternoon.

The section of the Sunbury Family Store where pizza, sandwiches and baked goods are made as well as the grocery and variety store sections did not suffer any damage.

An OPP report about the fire was released on Saturday (August 21)

It runs as follows:

On August 20, 2021 at approximately 11:25pm, officers from the Frontenac Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) along with South Frontenac Fire and Rescue were called to a business located on Battersea Rd., in South Frontenac Township, for a structure fire.

South Frontenac Fire Rescue extinguished the fire quickly but the business sustained damage to an outer wall and a gas pump. The fire has since been deemed suspicious in nature.

Frontenac OPP is continuing to investigate the circumstances involving the fire. Anyone with information regarding this fire are asked to contact the Frontenac Detachment of the OPP at 613-372-1932 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477)

Mike Healey has also put up a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of any person or persons related to the fire, The funds will be handled by the OPP.

Community groups, including the Sunbury Lions Club, have stepped in to support the store, and a Gofundme page is reportedly being set up.

Early this summer, on June 22, a suspicious fire in an apartment in the same building as the General store in Battersea was contained by South Frontenac Fire crews, causing limited damage. A Battersea resident was arrested in connection to that fire.