For those in 2A or lower, you have never experienced a quaint diner named Mel’s. You have never experienced the feeling of waking up hungover after a Pubcrawl, meeting up with your friends to discuss the previous night’s embarrassments, and gorging on the cheap, but delicious Mel’s special.
That’s because in the early morning of what would be a beautiful sunny spring day, a fire broke out in the campus court shops on the North-east corner of University Avenue West and Philip St. The fire started at a nightclub and quickly spread to the neighbouring businesses – an optometry clinic, a sushi restaurant, a candy store, and lastly, the beloved Mel’s.
Word that Mel’s had burned down spread as quickly as the fire that consumed it’s iconic 50’s interior. People were in disbelief, shock, and likely denial. For the immediate days after the fire, people came by to observe the damage, each of them ingraining the image of the Mel’s sign tilting on the verge of collapse from a charred wooden frame into their memory.
The fire was immediately listed as suspicious and promptly investigated by the Ontario Fire Marshall. Arrests were made in connection with the fire, one of them being a uptown Waterloo nightclub owner whose establishment is regularly frequented by Waterloo pubcrawls.
Less than 2 years since the Waterloo community lost Mel’s, the first criminal convictions were announced last week in connection with the fire of April 2010. According to the Waterloo Record, Daniel Campbell and William Schneider have been convicted of arson and sentence to jail time for starting the fire which caused $4.5 million in damage.
In what seems like a plot from an organized crime movie, Campbell apparently had racked up $19,000 of drug-use debt from the owner of the Titanium nightclub in uptown Waterloo. In order to clear the substantial debt, Campbell was hired to burn down Tabu nightclub to remove some nightclub competition from the City of Waterloo. Although Campbell only meant to target Tabu, several other people’s business were destroyed due to the fire.
Campus court will eventually be rebuilt, but there is presently no solid timeline known as to when it will happen. Jerry Smith, the owner of Mel’s has always vowed to rebuild the Waterloo favourite since the day the fire consumed his business.
Although we’re currently still Mel-less for the time being, there is still hope that one day, students alike can once again enjoy a hearty, cheap breakfast while not travelling too far from campus.
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