One of three Walmart stores that were damaged in the arson attacks opened its doors to the public for the first time since the fires were set last month.
A spokesperson for Walmart Canada confirmed that the store in the Bridgeport Plaza in Waterloo has opened, with the store in the Stanley Park Mall in Kitchener set to reopen on Friday.
“The stores are not 100 per cent fully stocked, but we want to welcome our customers back as soon as possible,” Adam Grachnik told Global News via email.
“From clean-up and restocking the shelves with new inventory, our teams have been working countless hours to get the stores ready to re-open.”
He says that the supercentre in the Sunrise Shopping Centre in Kitchener is still a few weeks away from reopening as repairs and restocking continues.
“It’s been a big undertaking,” Grachnik explained. “We will continue receiving more merchandise in the days and weeks ahead.”
On Oct. 20 between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., fires were set in the toilet paper and paper towel aisle at the Walmart stores in Sunrise Shopping Centre and Stanley Park Mall in Kitchener as well as the one in Bridgeport Plaza in Waterloo.
The following day, the Ontario’s Office of the Fire Marshal estimated the cost of the three fires to be more than $12 million.
On Oct. 24, police announced that they arrested a Paris, Ont., man and a male youth in connection with the fire.
They were also charged in connection to fire alarms being pulled in a Cambridge store as well as another outside of the community.
The pair were facing numerous charges including arson/disregard for human life and false alarm fire.