FILLMORE : Merchants to Hold Grand Opening

Fillmore merchants temporarily knocked out of business by the Jan. 17 earthquake will hold a grand opening celebration today featuring sales on merchandise, hot dogs and balloons for the kids.

Store owners reopened their shops nearly three weeks ago in the temporary, tent-like structure called “Central Park Plaza I” and the trailers across the street called “Central Park Plaza II.”

Other downtown merchants with little quake damage opened for business on Central Avenue the week of the quake.

Today’s event, however, serves official notice to the community “that we’re up and going,” said Dale Crockett, owner of Dale Crockett Studio and president of the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce. Businesses from the plaza structures as well as ones still operating on Central Avenue will participate.

Crockett, like the 20 other store owners in the plaza structures, worked in downtown buildings that suffered too much cosmetic or structural damage to immediately reopen. Instead, the merchants moved into the city-financed plaza building, where many might end up staying as long as a year.

Crockett said some merchants have benefited from the quake.

“I think business is better now than it was before the quake,” he said. “Like any mall or anything, we all work off each other’s customers.”