Gulf Shores Restaurant Fire Called Suspicious

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By Debbie Williams Reporter

M50o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr Gulf Shores Restaurant Fire Called Suspicious

Published: Thu, November 08, 2007 - 5:27 pm
Last Updated: Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 6:22 pm

Debbie Williams

Nick's at Gulf Shores, a new Italian restaurant along Highway 59, is a total loss and fire investigators say the fire is suspicious.
An early morning fire burned down a lot of history in Gulf Shores. "It's a landmark of Gulf Shores, it started out as a lumber yard many years ago," says Howie Wolf who stopped by to see for himself if what he had heard was true.
The building's lated re-incarnation was "Nick's at Gulf Shores" an Italian restaurant only open for a couple of months. Niki Grady had worked as a server, "It's just sad not only do they affect everybody that lives here it affects everybody that works here now we're all out of jobs. It's just sad."
Owners, Nick and Cathy Cascario were asleep in the upstairs apartment when the fire started.
"They barely made it out alive," says manager Mike Loria. "They lost a lifelong family pet that was like a child to them so obviously they're devastated we're all devastated but we're happy they made it out alive."
Workers say a lot of suspicious things had been going on the last few weeks. Fire alarms disabled, security gates tampered with and valves that operate the sprinkler system for the entire restaurant were turned off.
"Hopefully this is not something that anybody has intentionally done and we would accuse anybody it makes you wonder with everything going on and we just hope it wasn't the case," says Loria.
State and local fire marshals and ATF agents were on the scene most of the day. Gulf Shores Fire Chief Tim Blakemore says arson is a possibility.
"It appears to be we don't know yet until we finish our investigation we're trying to eliminate all natural causes and then we'll go from there."
The building is a total loss, something that can be rebuilt but never replaced.

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