LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Seven Clark County businesses off Tropicana and Pecos have been forced to temporarily shut down after an electrical panel at the strip mall caught fire Saturday afternoon.
Several shop owners tell channel 13 they believe homeless people may have started the fire that caused the damage.
Several of the businesses have been without all or partial power since the weekend, with no answers so far on how long it will take to be repaired. Clark County has seemed the structures unsafe until the issue is resolved.
“Am I going to be able to put food on the table for my kids or am I going to be out of business for six months?” asked Jonny Galvez, owner of Familia Tattoo.
“We’re uncomfortable in our own businesses,” said Joey Scolaro, owner of Lucino’s Pizza. “Unfortunately, there could have been some kind of way to prevent this.”
Scolaro says he had to throw a week’s worth of food down the drain and into the trash.
“I had to throw at least $10,000 worth of dough away and a bunch of product that we can no longer use,” Scolaro said.
The Clark County Fire Department hasn’t released an official cause of the fire, but several shop owners tell Channel 13 they believe it could have been homeless people who have been seen congregating near the utility boxes.
Galvez says he and his wife have had many unsettling encounters since opening of August of last year. Some of those encounters have been caught on camera, like when a man followed his wife into the tattoo shop and masturbated on the couch while she was in the bathroom.
It’s not just security that concerns Galvez though, it’s also building safety.
“We had a roof leak that took us three months out, then we were open two months, then two months after that we had a plumbing issue. Then after that, this electrical issue.”
Galvez and Scolaro say they’ve brought these to Collier Property Management, which manages the shopping center on behalf of the owner, several times. They say there has been no satisfactory action.
“We have requested multiple times; hey we’ll do whatever it takes to get better security. We’ve only gotten worse security,” Scolaro said.
“I thought this was going to be a thriving, cool shop and everything was going to be good, and it would’ve been, if I could’ve kept the doors open,” Galvez said.
Channel 13 has reached out to Colliers Property Management about these concerns and has not heard back.
