A fire completely destroyed the District Ultra Lounge located in the popular entertainment spot, the Strip Restaurant and Bar at the Giftland Mall, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown on Tuesday.
The cause of the fire is not yet known but the News Room understands that the owner of the entity, Sean Major held a party for all his employees there last night. At the time of the fire, the night club was closed.
Some 21 persons are now without a job as a result of the fire. Other concessions at The Strip only suffered minor damages from the smoke.
“The business is actually closed, we normally closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last night was our staff party for all of our staff from our other businesses and I don’t want to make any speculations, we don’t know what happen,” Major told reporters at the scene of the fire.
Major said he was at home when he heard about the fire but was not told the extent of the damages.
“I was in total shock when I went in to see that it’s completely damaged, there is no salvaging anything there,” the businessman said.
Major estimates his losses to be about $45M.
“We have sound systems, freezers, kitchen equipment, décor; glasses maybe $3M worth of liquor…whatever was needed for a night club to run it was in there. I would say about 45 million,” Major said.
Major said he will consider rebuilding and noted that the business was not insured.
He said it is really heartbreaking that his “baby” was destroyed.
“We don’t have [insurance] because we are in a mall, but I think we should have had our individual own.”
The proprietor of the Giftland Mall, Roy Beepat told the media that the fire was electrical in origin, however, Major claimed that there were no electrical problems.
“Nothing of the sort, this has nothing to do with electrical, based on the few fire officers they checked the panels, everything is intact, this place was done to the most professional and high standard,” Major said.
Meanwhile, Mr Beepat highlighted that his staff were the ones who extinguished the fire before the Fire Service arrived.
“Everything is back to normal in record time, our team responded very quickly, the fire alarms went off, all the firefighting equipment was there,” Mr Beepat said.
He noted that they would conduct regular fire drills, so everyone was prepared when the fire started.
When the News Room arrived at the scene, customers and staff at the mall were in the parking lot. Within an hour they were able to proceed back into the building.
“The fire was put out within five or seven minutes, and there is a very alert and well trained security, in fact we have regular fire drill so events like this the place is evacuated very quickly, the gas is turned off immediately and the power is turned off immediately,” Mr Beepat said.
Mr Beepat highlighted that he has a major concern with electrical products in Guyana.
Julia Maxwell, a vendor outside of the mall said she was the one who called the fire service.
“I was sitting and I saw a girl come running out and then I saw the smoke and I called the [fire service] and then I call my boss and told him what happening out here, everybody come out calmly and just was in the parking lot,” Maxwell said.
