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thatcrazycajunThe offices where I currently work are close to Cumberland Mall, one of metro Atlanta's premier shopping centers. Today at around a quarter of 1 PM, I drove the half a mile there planning to enjoy a gyro for lunch at the Great Wraps in the mall's food court. Imagine my surprise and puzzlement to arrive at the mall's southern end and find Cobb County Police Dept. cars, motorcycles and uniformed officers blocking every single entrance to the mall's parking lot, all the way round.
Stopped the car at the first place I could near an entrance and got out to ask the fuzz what's the haps. Turns out the county fire department had closed the entire mall for the rest of the day due to a fire having broken out inside the mall. "You now have every piece of information I have," said the cop I asked after he told me this. The restaurants and fast-food joints in the vicinity enjoyed a resulting unusual midweek boom in business as all those of us who'd been hoping to use the food court were forced to seek nourishment, or some semblance thereof, elsewhere.
The local paper broke the story here about an hour ago. Seems a Finish Line store in the mall had a fire break out in its back room. Thankfully, it appears no people were hurt. But merchants in the mall lost a day's business, and some stores on the floor below the fire site will have costs from repairing water damage to budget in.
Wouldn't it have been possible to have at least one sign made up and put out by the road to explain to people why their shopping and eating have suddenly been curtailed? I wasted almost half my lunch hour driving around trying to find an unblocked entrance and then to ascertain why there were none, then finding another place to eat. Had there been a sign, I could have simply gone, "Oh, dear, hope no one was hurt," and drove on to another place to eat.
Stopped the car at the first place I could near an entrance and got out to ask the fuzz what's the haps. Turns out the county fire department had closed the entire mall for the rest of the day due to a fire having broken out inside the mall. "You now have every piece of information I have," said the cop I asked after he told me this. The restaurants and fast-food joints in the vicinity enjoyed a resulting unusual midweek boom in business as all those of us who'd been hoping to use the food court were forced to seek nourishment, or some semblance thereof, elsewhere.
The local paper broke the story here about an hour ago. Seems a Finish Line store in the mall had a fire break out in its back room. Thankfully, it appears no people were hurt. But merchants in the mall lost a day's business, and some stores on the floor below the fire site will have costs from repairing water damage to budget in.
Wouldn't it have been possible to have at least one sign made up and put out by the road to explain to people why their shopping and eating have suddenly been curtailed? I wasted almost half my lunch hour driving around trying to find an unblocked entrance and then to ascertain why there were none, then finding another place to eat. Had there been a sign, I could have simply gone, "Oh, dear, hope no one was hurt," and drove on to another place to eat.
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Date: 2007-10-26 06:27 pm (UTC)