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The Pawn Store first to reopen following May 2013 downtown fire
By LAUREN BOUCHER
Staff Writer
After a trying year for many of the businesses damaged in the East Washington Street fire last year, The Pawn Store officially reopened last Wednesday.
With many patrons relying on The Pawn Store for some quick, much needed cash in tough times, owner Thomas Greenberg has spent more than a year rebuilding his store after the massive fire heavily damaged several buildings, including his own.
"We're officially the first ones open," Greenberg stated. "We worked really hard to be the first ones open. Pressure would be an understatement."
Following the fire, Greenberg temporarily relocated the store onto Indiana Street, a move he found to not be as beneficial as planned due to ongoing street construction and lack of foot traffic.
"It was bad," Greenberg explained. "Our numbers plummeted when we moved over there and we were losing money, but then we started to get to the break even point and then they closed the street down and that just shut it off. We were so shut down over there with that street closed. People were barely able to get in there. It was just a lot of work to set up a temporary location."
After having to pay thousands of dollars due to a flaw in the insurance policy as well as pay rent in two locations, moving back into the building he considers home, Greenberg hopes business will return to normal in large part due to easier access, visibility and an increase in street traffic.
"I had to pay a lot out of pocket. It turns out our policy was flawed in a couple of places," Greenberg explained. "I have multiple locations and when I started this I said I wanted all the locations insured the same. I had no fixtures coverage here, so all the shelving, cases, counters, and computers had no coverage. It was thousands of dollars to replace that stuff. It's been a nightmare. I've had to put a lot of my own personal money, over $100,000, to keep it running."
Greenberg added that virtually no pawns were lost during the blaze, however the cost to rebuild was immense.
"We lost virtually no pawns because our pawn room has a double ceiling," Greenberg said. "We only lost only five percent of our loaned merchandise. So that was really good that we didn't have to replace peoples' stuff. Plus we have a series of safes that we use so no jewelry was even touched. However, we lost 100 percent of our sellable inventory."
With his inventory built back up, Greenberg chose to keep the atmosphere of his business just as it was before the blaze. Although everything had to get rebuilt, he chose to make very little changes.
"Everything is pretty much the same," Greenberg said. "We didn't put the drop ceiling back in, but other than that it's almost exactly the same. There's only so many ways you can set this space up and we had it set up for maximized use for the store."
So, The Pawn Store reopens and prepares to return to normal, Greenberg hopeful his customer base will follow.
"We've been here for 10 years and do a really good business here," Greenberg added. "We have a lot of people who depend on us for short-term cash issues. People can't just go get $100 somewhere when your electricity is about to be shut off you can't just get $100 at a bank, it doesn't work that way. There's an enormous amount of people in this county and surrounding counties that have come to depend on us for their short-term financial needs. This is their emergency account."
The Pawn Store, located at 22 E. Washington St., is open Monday through Friday 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
"After 10 years, we didn't want to let those people down," Greenberg added. "That's why we didn't just shut it down and wait for our building to get done. We went through all the trouble and expense of moving to another premises. Our customers have come to depend on us."