Thursday, November 02, 2006

Mass Mesa Distruction


Atomic Comic's Mesa AZ store had a MAJOR disaster on Tuesday! Some stupid teenage girl drove through the window of the shop. That's not all - she also hit one of the building's water pipes, causing the store to flood - as you can see in the photo, it ruined just about everything. Water and comics generally do not mix. In fact, I read in one account of the accident that some of the comics that were pummeled by a fountain of water had the color washed right off of them.

After going through the window the girl and her boyfriend fled the scene in the vehicle. Witnesses gave the police a description of the car and it didn't take them long to find her. At first she denied doing it at all. "THOSE dents, they've been there for a while. Oh, and that glass, well, I think the car comes with glass embedded in the bumper." Yeah RIGHT. The cops didn't buy it, and then she said that she hit the curb, panicked and then hit the gas instead of the break, causing the car do go through the window. The store manager could have been seriously injured, because he's usually there at that time of day, and the flying shards of glass and force of the water plus vehicle could easily have done him in. Fortunately the coffee shop took a while to make his coffee that morning, so he was a few minutes later than usual.

Amazingly, they were open for new book day on Wednesday and plan to be open every day this week except Sunday. I guess when you've got the climate they have down there in the desert you can run your store outside just as well as inside.

The story really hits home for us here. You probably read the post I did about a month back about the guy who was run down by the old lady in the mini-van who put her vehicle through the poor guy and the front door of the Sherwin Williams paint store. There was also a car through the window of the tanning salon RIGHT NEXT DOOR to us, only a few months after we'd opened our store here. I don't think we have any water pipes in the front, thankfully. But I might have to check to be sure. This definately sucks for them - I'm sure that they had lots of items that are impossible or very difficult to replace. Not to mention tons of back stock that will have to be trashed. But, the owner does have several stores, so at least they can get items from them and their warehouse.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WHOA! This is the first time I've heard of this!! I really gotta pay more attention to the local news down here! That's messed up! I was gonna visit that particular store this week, but I didn't have enough time, so I hit Atomic's Chandler store (closer to home). Man that SUCKS! You guys should really consider putting up a couple of those heavy-duty concrete pyolons on the sidewalk outside your place...especially since those darn kids are driving SUVs these days.