WINDSOR MILL, Md. — A business at a Windsor Mill strip mall in opened his door to the public for the first time on Saturday, May 14.
Two days later, an explosion at nearby Libra Nails and Spa, in the Security Station Shopping Center, prompted inspectors to shut down Dr. Hernan Guadalupe’s new Jiu Jitsu business next door.
“Looking up at the top, you can tell the fire rating wall has been replaced. All of this was collapsed during the incident,” Guadalupe pointed out as he showed WMAR-2 News the damage inside.
The night of the arson and blast, one of his customers called him to say the explosion had impacted his business.
“Just the thought, all the way from my house driving here was, ‘We’re not going to be able to continue. It’s a complete loss because from how he described it,” said Guadalupe, who is back in business now, along with the China Garden and Legends Halal Grill, which also were initially condemned.
A disgruntled former employee who allegedly set the fire that caused the explosion after a confrontation with police remains hospitalized with burns over most of his body.
In the week since the blast, business owners have also learned more about the disruption, which brought police there in the first place.
“He had some chemicals in his hand, possession, and he lit himself on fire, and then he started running up and down,” said Aman Nori of Legends Halal Grill, “We got pretty nervous, because we’ve got gas pipes and everything so we shut down right away.”
While many lost about a week’s worth of business, and workers lost hours on the job, they count themselves fortunate.
Guadalupe said he is relying upon a philosophy at the very heart of the martial arts to control one’s anger to pick up the pieces and move on.
“We wish maybe the individual on the opposite side could have had some of that philosophy,” Guadalupe said. “Maybe things would have ended differently.”
