Not down and out, only sidelined right now

North Bay Fire Chief Grant Love thanked the community for their continued patience as Main Street remains closed to motorists and pedestrians following Tuesday night’s fire on.

Fire ripped through the century old Cochrane building that housed both landmark businesses Lefebvre's Source for Adventure and Vested Interest Wholesale.

Love says while engineers have given the okay for the investigation team to go in the building they are limited to where they can go because the second floor collapsed onto the main floor therefore public safety is priority and the area will remain closed to all traffic.

At the same time Jerry Lefebvre owner of Lefebvre’s and Jennifer McNutt Bywater co-owner of Vested Interest are galvanized by the public’s support and well wishes and encourage the community to shop downtown North Bay.

Lefebvre, noting his family has been in business in the downtown core for 99 years, says the loss and devastation is still far too fresh for him to make any definitive decisions about re-building the business.

“We have great options, at this point we feel we are adequately protected with insurance but what insurance is all about its paperwork and suits so we’re in that process right now,” he says.

“We have to look at all options of course. The good thing about it we have great partners in building who are all very aggressive very eager and they may help a guy, a seasoned veteran like me, to make sure we keep drudging forward and make things happen.”

“But time will tell. We’ll know in the next 30 days or so where we are headed.”

Meanwhile, McNutt-Bywater is busy looking for temporary warehouse space and preparing for the largest wholesale gift show in Canada at the end of the month. She says this show is the most important one for their business and because they lost the show booth and inventory they are hitting the ground running.