WINGATE — The first sign of distress in Wingate early Sunday morning was the bricks and debris found scattered on State Road 25.
Around 6:30 a.m. Sunday, volunteer firefighters from Coal Creek Fire Department were dispatched to the area of West High Street and State Road 25 (Vine Street) for a building collapse.
Upon arrival, first responders found the two-story brick building at 100 S. Vine St. partially collapsed.
The brick and debris that had fallen onto State Road 25 (Vine Street) created a safety issue for both motorists and the public.
The roadway was shut down and town officials conducted an emergency meeting to deal with the situation. The brief meeting concluded with the decision to demolish the remainder of the building.
Demolition by W Enterprises LLC began around 10 a.m. However, during the demolition, the west wall, which was shared with the adjacent High Street Bar and Grill, collapsed into the bar, and created significant damage.
West Null, who owns the one-story brick bar with his wife, said the bar is closed indefinitely due to the damage.
Null said the collapse came as no surprise to him and his wife as he had reached out to several different officials over the last seven years about the old, vacant building, which was built in 1900.
Wingate Town President Kyle Campbell said the building that collapsed had been declared an unsafe building several years ago. He added that the town has tried to reach the owner, John Wilkerson, for the past six to seven, with no response.
The building recently sold in a tax sale, but the deed was never signed, thus turning ownership back over to Wilkerson.
Null is disappointed with how the town reacted to the emergency and stressed that the damage to his bar could have been avoided.
“I mean, the excavator guy obviously had no idea what he was doing, and they made no plan for anything whatsoever,” Null said. “Now I’m trying to decide what I’m supposed to do about it, but all I get is the runaround. Nobody’s at fault. That’s how they were supposed to do it because it was an emergency and, you know, nobody did anything wrong.”
The town’s attorney, Stuart Weliever, said town officials have done everything they could to address the unsafe building prior to the collapse.
“We have been trying to get the owners of this old bank building to do something with this building, because it was in bad shape, and we were trying to force them to do something, and we were constantly ignored,” Weliever said.
Weliever said the town has cited and fined the property owner for nuisance violations and unsafe building violations several times, hoping to force Wilkerson to act. However, there has never been a response.
Weliever added that small towns like Wingate typically don’t have the funds to act on their own. Furthermore, existing laws make it difficult for government officials to make decisions for private properties.
Despite the destruction of the High Street Bar and Grill, the owners remain optimistic about the bar’s future.
The Nulls were set to celebrate their seventh year of operation in February and had big plans for New Year’s at the bar. They had 50 reservations for a holiday event — one of their biggest sales days of the year.
“We’re coming back. We ain’t going out like that,” Null said. “We don’t give up easy. So, we will rebuild better than ever.”
