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Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Via the DCist tipline, we heard there may have been a fire at year-old Mt. Vernon Square-area coffee shop Breakwell's, on the corner of 9th and M Streets NW. Sure enough, the windows at the front and along the side of the shop have been boarded up, and there is visible fire damage to the exterior of the building.
While checking out the extent of the damage, DCist chatted with the proprietors of WIDE Prints, a small printing and design firm located in the space above Breakwell's. They told us the fire was started over the weekend by a group of kids playing with fireworks -- the sparks ended up igniting some garbage cans left in the exterior alcove entrance of Breakwell's, which then shot flames up across the brick facade, blowing out the Pepco meters and electricity hookups at the front of the building in their path. The fire department was responsible for the rest of the damage, according to the guys from WIDE Prints, as they took off the metal bars over the windows and broke the glass in order to fight the blaze. The interior of WIDE was not damaged, while the interior of Breakwell's mostly just looks like it was damaged by water used by the fire department. Calls to Breakwell's indicated their phone is not currently working.
Overall, none of the damage looks insurmountable to reopening for either Breakwell's or WIDE, though they are currently without electricity and will need to spend some time and money cleaning up the mess. But considering this was sparked by kids playing with fireworks, could this incident once again lead to calls for banning their use in the city?
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not could....should.
if the fire investigators determine that was the cause, then jesus h. christ, mr. evans better get on that, since this is his ward.
idiot kids and their stupid fireworks.
do they know who the kids are that did this? they should pay for the damages.
Isn't pretty much everything but sparklers already illegal in the district? If you're going to make sparklers illegal you may as well make candles and those long fireplace matches from the '70s illegal, too.
Somehow I don't think adding, "but this time we really mean it!" to a law will really have much of an impact.
The "dangerous" fireworks are ALREADY ILLEGAL. Get it through your head!
Ive complained to police as kids shot fireworks, openly on the sidewalk, middle of the day. They refused to intervene. In Shaw particularly, and in the summer specifically, kids + fireworks are a problem. They sound like gunshots and perpetuate the 3rd world nature of the hood.
I am confused. Is this DCist writer (or WIDE) blaming the fire department for damaging the store while trying to put out the fire?
#6. i picked up on that too. interesting choice of words. i think the fire dept. did exactly what they're paid to do.
I think Sommer's point was that it wasn't fire damage inside, but rather water damage, and that the windows were broken to put out the fire, not because of the fire. Windows and bars can be expensive to replace. Water damage from the fire department is real, and is often worse than fire and smoke damage. My question is whether that water damage is covered by insurance?
Ban children not fireworks.
I think she made it pretty clear that they did the damage in order to fight the blaze.
Damage caused by the fire department is usually worse than that caused by the fire itself; that's a definition of success. If the damage caused by the fire was *worse* than the damage caused by the fire department, then you lost out to the fire.
Think about it; it's like asking "why do you always find something in the last place you look?" - it's because you stopped looking when you found it. "Why does the fire department cause more damage than the fire" - it's because they knocked the fire before it had a chance to really gut the house.