Fire leaves Las Vegas strip mall powerless, businesses blame homeless, mall management

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – An electrical box caught fire, and then an entire side of an east Las Vegas valley strip mall went black, according to the fire department.

The Clark County Fire Department and tenants of Pecos Center in the 3400 block of East Tropicana Avenue also said a mid-day fire on Saturday left seven businesses nearby powerless for days.

CCFD said it’s still looking for suspects, and businesses who spoke to 8 News Now point the blame to the nearby homeless community and the strip mall’s management.

The fire was first reported within a shopping cart around 1:52 p.m., CCFD said. The cart was within feet of the electrical panels behind the strip mall.

CCFD said it provoked 30 fire personnel to respond. No firefighter or civilian injuries were reported.

However, the agency acknowledged that meters supplying power to seven different units of the mall were damaged, causing power loss. Most of those businesses continued to work in the dark on Monday.

Jonny Galvez said he was the first to respond on Saturday. The meters are located directly behind his business, Familia Tattoo.

“Smoke was billing out the side of the building,” Galvez said inside his parlor with all the lights forced off Monday morning. “I ran back with the fire extinguisher, seeing there was a shopping cart on fire there. Then knowing it’s next to a power box, the fire extinguisher wasn’t going to do anything, I ran back.”

The fire blazed on one of the most profitable days of the week for his shop. Galvez claimed he lost $2,000 from canceled appointments through Monday.

A few units down, Giuseppe Scolaro filled a small dumpster with what he said was thousands of dollars worth of pizza dough. The refrigerators inside Lucino’s Pizza clicked off during a lunch rush Saturday and haven’t turned on since.

The next unit over, Raul Hernandez said his AC had not blown cool air inside his studio, Intense Taekwondo. The floor mats, with their shape maintained via temperature control, have expanded and no longer fit the space. Hernandez said replacing the two layers of the mat may cost $8,000 and that he will be teaching his classes of children students at a local park for the time being.

CCFD said no security cameras pointed toward the fire’s location and that witnesses did not identify any person responsible for the fire. However, businesses believe the now charred shopping cart full of miscellaneous items indicates how the fire originated.

“I wouldn’t say that you would just have a normal Joe-Shmo just pushing a cart on a regular Saturday afternoon in a back alleyway,” Scolaro said, standing next to his bin of trashed pizza dough Monday morning.

“I think the homeless, too, are a little smarter in this neighborhood,” Galvez said, detailing personal incidents of unhoused individuals acting erratically while entering nearby businesses. “It’s just an ongoing thing where we have homeless sleeping on the floor here, throwing rocks through windows.”

Businesses also point the finger at the strip mall’s management company, Colliers, that’s allegedly denied their requests for on-site security. The employee responsible for managing the complex did not return multiple requests for comment by 8 News Now on Monday.

“When I call the manager, she always says she can’t do anything. She doesn’t know,” Hernandez said inside his dark Taekwondo studio Monday morning.

“When we want to speak to a higher-up, we’re told that they are the higher-up,” Scolaro said.

Until these business owners get answers from Colliers, they are bound by leases they say are too expensive to break. They say they will still be required to pay rent later this week.

“I can’t pay the rent here because I’m not open, and then I have to pay my mortgage at my other house, and feed my kids, and do all this stuff, and I can’t make money,” Galvez said.

“The only thing that is hurting is our business,” Scolaro said. “We care more about our property than the actual, physical property manager itself. It is an uneven scale.”

Building inspectors on-site Monday indicate the repair could take at least a week to fix, if not longer.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.