The owner of the Island’s only commercial laundry business says damage is minimal after a fire Sunday night.
Terry McKenna, who owns and operates Sterns Laundry in Charlottetown, received a call from police at 11 p.m. informing him there was a fire in the Kent Street building. He arrived to find the fire department putting the fire out.
McKenna said he believes rags or towels reacted to something causing a fire.
“I don’t know, a chemical reaction of some kind,” he told The Guardian Monday as he was cleaning up, adding once the reaction occurred, the box they were in began smoldering then caught on fire.
No one was hurt and the owner said damage is minimal.
“There’s just smoke damage, there’s no physical damage,” he said. “We’ve got all of our staff in now and we’ll clean for as long as it takes and hopefully be open tomorrow.”
Sterns Laundry is the only commercial laundry business on P.E.I., McKenna said, adding New Method Dry Cleaners and Master Cleaners are also part of the operation and act as laundry drop off locations.
“This is the only physical plant, we do everything here,” he said. “We have a big commercial business. We do most of the hotels in town.”
The fire is more of an inconvenience than anything else, he said.
“We have to re-clean everything just for safety's sake,” he said. “That’s the nuisance part of it
Everything’s good. We’ve just got to clean it, that’s it.”
The fire inspector was unable to be reached for comment.
