Magic Club Will Try to Rebound After Smoky Fire

An exclusive Newport Beach magic club, already fighting its way back from bankruptcy, will be closed for at least six weeks while workers repair the damage from what officials are calling a suspicious fire.

On Tuesday, however, executives said Magic Island will press on with an aggressive marketing effort to increase the private club’s membership.

Newport Beach fire officials declined to release the cause of the Monday night blaze that destroyed the club’s kitchen and part of a dining room, but they characterized it as suspicious.

“I’m not making any (other) statements yet,” Fire Inspector Jim Upton said Tuesday. “The investigation is not completed yet.”

Flames Left Heavy Layer of Soot

The fire blackened the club’s kitchen and left a heavy layer of soot throughout the first-floor showroom and dining room. Display cases filled with magic apparatus were damaged, but club officials said the magic collection itself seemed to be unharmed.

“Accidents can happen,” said Terry Giles, chairman and principal owner of its parent company, Grand Illusion Enterprises Inc., “but if it was arson, that is disturbing.”

The club, which features private dining rooms and entertainment by magic acts, filed for protection from creditors June 25, 1985, and came out of Chapter 11 protection on April 1, 1986, said Thomas Sciarrino, the club’s executive vice president.

In that time, its new management had made many changes, including dismissing some employees, Giles said, adding, “We had already brought the club back to profitability.”

Although Giles said some former owners and creditors have reasons to be unhappy with Magic Island, he added, “I can’t imagine that any of those people would be unbalanced enough to start a fire.”

Still, Giles said, things could have been worse. “If we had to have a fire, the timing was as good as it could be,” he noted.

Renovations Will Be Completed

The summer months are traditionally slower for business at the club, Giles explained, and the six-to-eight-week closure to repair fire, smoke and water damage will give the club a chance to complete some renovations that already were planned.

“If we’re going to close, we might as well do some other things,” Sciarrino said.

The club “has a lot of smoke damage throughout,” said Upton, the fire inspector. “There’s a layer of very sticky soot on pretty much everything in there.”

He estimated the damage to be “at least $150,000. . . . That’s very conservative, I would say.”

“There’s no way that they’ll get the stink out of any of that--carpets, drapes, furniture,” Upton added, predicting that many of the items would have to be replaced or reupholstered, and much of the club repainted.

The club’s insurance should cover the fire and smoke damage, Sciarrino noted.

New Membership Drive Was Starting

Meanwhile, Magic Island will continue a membership drive that was just getting under way when the fire took place. Direct mailings began last Saturday and advertisements in a local magazine will begin next week.

A telephone marketing program is going “full steam ahead,” said James R. Daggett, marketing vice president of Good-Koupal, the club’s Irvine-based advertising and public relations agency.

Before the club opened five years ago, it was able to sell nearly 2,000 memberships, sight unseen, Daggett said. And recently, Sciarrino added, “business was good; it was getting better, too.”

On Tuesday, however, club employees were calling members to let them know that their reservations for the coming weeks had to be canceled. For Father’s Day alone, the list included five pages of names and plans, a receptionist said.