Laguna Mops Up One More Time

Nudging his one-handled pushcart along Forest Avenue in downtown Laguna Beach on Tuesday morning, letter carrier Butch Chadick paused briefly--but only briefly--as he encountered the burned-out building housing nine stricken businesses on his route.

“This town’s good at handling stuff like this,” Chadick said. “We’re going to do the same thing today we always do--get them their mail, one way or another.”

A day after a fire all but destroyed a historic building in one of Orange County’s most famous spots for strolling, the downtown area buzzed with merchants surveying their losses, insurance adjusters scribbling on clipboards and engineers examining the 1916-vintage building.

And as it has so many times, Laguna Beach began pulling together, digging out from under, readying for the next sunny day.

“The next step? We’ll rebuild,” declared Randy Hunt, co-owner of the Quiksilver Boardriders Club, which sells beach shirts and snowboarding outfits for $15 to $300.

“Every cloud has a silver lining, and we’ll be back,” he said. “And watch: It’ll be bigger and better.”

The two-story building housed a spa and salon, clothing stores, offices and a shoe store. It was heavily damaged by the Monday morning fire, which apparently started in an electrically heated wax pot, used for smoothing women’s legs, investigators and insurance experts said.

The building’s second story was almost destroyed, and the structure’s roof collapsed. Downstairs retailers suffered devastating inventory losses from smoke, soot, debris and water. Damage has been estimated at $4.5 million.

But to some, Monday’s fire was comparatively minor in a town better known for the 1993 firestorm that consumed 400 houses, and the 1998 mudslides that damaged or destroyed more than 300 homes and killed two people. By comparison, many felt, this one was easy.

“This is a shame, but they’ll be back,” said Marty Kraft, who was tending the Candy Baron store next to the fire. “In Laguna Beach, they always come back.”

Three firefighters suffered minor injuries, but store owners were thankful that they, their families, their employees and customers were spared physical hardship.

“We are very lucky,” said Alice Browne, who, with husband Joe, owns Freeman Shoes, where thousands of shoes were soaked by fire hoses and steamed in smoke. “It’s not like the Central American disasters, whole villages buried. We are alive.”

But the fire, coming just as stores were gearing up for a holiday shopping season, was another setback for merchants trying to overcome losses over the last year from repeated flooding and underscored the sense of struggle felt in communities that rely on a core of small businesses.

“In small business, you spend your whole life building a business, putting in long hours, doing hard work, providing a service the department stores can’t provide, and then, poof!” said Alice Browne, snapping her fingers. “Up in smoke.”

On Tuesday morning, Joe Browne, who has been in the shoe business for 30 years, stood in his storeroom, the smell of wet smoke heavy in the air, trickles of water drizzling on his uncovered head, and aisle after aisle of shelves stacked to the ceiling with shoe boxes sagging from the soaking.

“Look at this,” he said, pulling a white Mephisto sneaker from a wet and crumpled box. “One of the best shoes in the world. $250. It’s gone.”

For the Brownes and other retailers, insurance policies will cover much of the loss in contents and belongings in their rented stores, and most policies even compensate for days lost from remaining closed.

But policies don’t compensate for the process of rebuilding a customer base, waiting to rebuild stock and getting customers used to a new look or location.

“We’ve had a fire, the smoke and thousands of gallons of water--we know the stuff’s going to be a write-off,” said Eric John, a co-owner of the Quiksilver Boardriders Club. “What we’re concerned most about is getting back into business. When can we get back in business?”

The Boardriders Club completed a $100,000 renovation only six months ago, and the 5-year-old business was becoming known for its antique surfboards, its 500-gallon saltwater aquarium with exotic fish and eels, and its tiki collection. The tikis and antiques were spared in the fire, and all but two of the 25 fish survived and were removed by experts to a local aquarium dealer early Tuesday.

Pacing through muddy piles of black debris inside the store, co-owner Hunt remained upbeat even as he ran his hand over wet and discolored merchandise hanging limply from hangers on chrome racks.

“You stand outside while the fire’s going and you think, ‘How bad can it be?’ Then you come inside and see how bad it really is,” Hunt said. “But we’ve done it before and we can do it again.”

Strolling through the seaside shopping and bistro district, local residents Martha McManus and J.B. Barnes surveyed the scene. To longtime residents, it’s a scene that has become so familiar that McManus refers to the sound of sirens as “Laguna’s national anthem.”

“It’s tragic for this to happen to businesses that have been here for many years--good businesses,” she said. “They’re irreplaceable.”