North County : Requests for Fire Aid Trickle in From Firms

Merchants in three cities are not rushing to apply for state or federal aid for money lost in a mass evacuation of homes and businesses last month during a toxic fire in Anaheim.

In Fullerton, city officials said the questionnaires used to survey the losses were so complicated that they decided to forgo the process that Anaheim and Placentia are using to tabulate losses from the June 22 fire at the Larry Fricker Co. in Anaheim. Those city officials hope to use the questionnaires’ information to request loans from the Small Business Administration.

In Placentia, almost a quarter of the businesses evacuated during the toxic fire have reported a total of $140,000 in lost business, Assistant City Administrator Jack Slota said. With 45 of 200 businesses responding, the surveys are “trickling in,” Slota said.

Meanwhile, in Anaheim, eight businesses of an approximate 90 have responded so far to the same survey sent out about 10 days ago, said Bob Berg, Anaheim emergency services coordinator. Anaheim officials had not tabulated the losses reported by the eight firms, Berg said.

Fullerton officials, who decided against mailing the questionnaires, said they had not received any request for reimbursements or damage reports.

Fullerton Fire Chief Ron Coleman said the survey is time-consuming and asked for such information as the average daily cash flow and receipts for the past two years.

Calling the surveys “a sizable task,” Fullerton City Manager William Winter said there was no assurance that the questionnaires would result in aid for the businesses. “I don’t want to get people’s hopes up,” Winter said. If the loans did become available, Fullerton businesses that did not participate in the questionnaire would not be precluded from applying, he said.

“Golly, to make all the people go through all that work to fill out what was kind of a complicated questionnaire, I don’t know if it was worth it,” Winter said.

City and fire officials contacted said they did not know why the response to the questionnaires was slow.

“I don’t think some of the businesses are that interested. But we’ll see. I don’t know,” Berg said.

“I tend to believe that most of them perceived it (the evacuation) as a temporary interruption,” Coleman said.