'It's tough to see it go': Business residents of Kirkwood Block trying to move on following fire

WINNIPEG -

Businesses located inside the Kirkwood Block building are trying to figure out the next steps after the historic building was destroyed in a massive fire on Feb. 2.

The building was home to a number of businesses including Eben Convenience Store, a Korean-Canadian owned shop.

Son of the owners, Paul Lee said he got a call from his brother Wednesday telling him his family’s store was on fire.

“(My parents) were okay, but I also heard that they had left with just the clothes on their back,” said Lee. “They left everything in the store, as well as the unit adjacent to the store that they were staying in.”

Lee said his family immigrated to Canada from South Korea in 1997, and they opened the convenience store on Feb. 2, 1998. The fire happened 24 years to the day of them opening their business.

He said some of his earliest childhood memories are being inside Eben Convenience Store, and losing the business and his parents home to fire is devastating.

“It was just such an important part of our family’s history so it’s tough to see it go.”

Many others were also impacted by the Kirkwood Block fire, including local band The Ripperz, who used the basement as a practice space.

Guitarist, Dan Thomas said that morning he could see smoke filling up the downtown sky, and quickly realized it was his practice space that was on fire.

“The entire building was pretty involved, so kind of knew right then it was going to be pretty bad for everybody that had anything to do with that spot,” said Thomas.

Thomas said his band lost close to $30,000 worth of equipment, but the music community is helping them recover some of what they lost through a GoFundMe.

Thomas said the gesture was humbling, and the band hopes to make a difference for someone else in the future.

“Maybe down the road we get back on our feet, and we can find something else that we want to get behind, and maybe raise money for the next initiative and pay it forward.”

Lee is also raising funds to help his family recover, and the support for the cause has reached far and wide, including a tweet from Canadian actor Andrew Phung from the TV show Kim’s Convenience.

“There’s a lot of parallels in my family’s story with (the Kim’s Convenience) story, so it’s also been really incredible to see some of the stars from that show help spread the word,” said Lee.

Lee doesn’t think a new convenience store is in the cards for his parents.

“My parents, I don’t think are in a place right now to retire, so I think that’s just really the big question right now is what’s next?”

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, and damage estimates are not yet available.