With a police perimeter blocking streets around the fire site, ‘business is way down, like 80 per cent down,’ one shop owner says.
D’Amora lives above her shop.
“We just thought it was someone partying outside,” she said of the noise. “Then we saw the flames. We grabbed our stuff and ran outside.”
She barely slept for the next three days. On Friday, D’Amora stood in the street and let firefighters use her washrooms. They continued hosing down the building until 6 a.m. Sunday, she said, then started up again that afternoon.
But D’Amora hasn’t had time to dwell on the action next door. Like other shop owners on the street, she has a business to run. And with her block of Notre-Dame St. closed to traffic, with workers parsing through the ashes and police treating the area as a crime scene, that has been easier said than done.
The power was out for the first 36 hours following the blaze.
“We lost at least two weeks’ worth of stock,” D’Amora said Monday, listing “croissants, milk, meat, cheese, all that stuff.”
Police are stationed at each corner around her shop, and barricades block vehicles from entering.
“Business is way down,” she said, “like 80 per cent down.”
“It’s intimidating for people to walk by,” D’Amora explained. “They’re getting yelled at (by police). Nobody is telling us anything about what’s going to happen. Every day it’s, ‘You’re not allowed to stand here today.’
“Yesterday, we couldn’t get in with deliveries. I had to walk all our stuff in from the corner with my dad, who is my partner, at 4 a.m. He’s the baker in the morning.”
Manjit Singh and his wife, Nilaxi Singh, own Souvenir du Québec, a souvenir shop he opened in 1990. Before that, his father had run a clothing business called Fashion India out of the same location since 1969.
“We’re one of the oldest (souvenir shops) in the area,” Manjit said.
Nilaxi takes care of the shop, while Manjit works as a real-estate agent. He has a direct connection to the building that burned down: It was his first transaction when he sold it to Émile-Haim Benamor around 2005.
“I did two transactions with him — that was enough,” he said.
“We feel sad for the family who died. The only thing I’ll say is the city is not doing enough to control illegal Airbnbs. It’s still happening.”
Singh said the souvenir shop’s business is down “98 per cent” since the fire.
“No tourist is going to pass by here,” he said. “At the beginning, they wouldn’t even let anybody in. And now even if you call, no cars can come in.”
But Singh is undeterred.
“We lived through SARS, we lived through COVID,” he said. “We lived through one year with no income or anything. So this is two or three weeks.”
Things were quiet at Café Mercanti, a few doors away from the building that burned at the corner of Bonsecours St.
“It’s not really good since the fire,” owner Frank Miozzi said. “Nothing is happening because the street is shut down. They’re not letting anybody in. Anytime there’s a shift change with the police officers, we have to re-ask again, ‘Can we have people walking in the street?’ They open up the sidewalks, but then they re-close them. Deliveries can’t come in, so many things.”
Miozzi says he had three clients on Sunday, when normally the area is abuzz with locals and tourists. He closed at noon “because there was nobody. It costs me more to stay open than not to open. Today is a bit better, people have to go to work.
“But the issue is people have to ask the cops if they can have access, which gives the wrong impression because they have barricades. If they don’t ask, they probably think it’s closed off. And if you don’t say you’re going to the coffee shop or the dépanneur, they’re not letting you in. In the end, it’s just blocking traffic that could give me business.”