Edmonton strip mall destroyed by arson a ‘sacred’ place for Mill Woods residents: food writer

Riaz Khan awoke early Tuesday morning to his worried daughter and a flurry of texts about the family restaurant.

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He arrived at the Mill Woods-area shopping centre a short time later. What he saw left him speechless.

“Everything was in flames by 8 o’clock in the morning,” he said. “There was so much smoke, about 12 fire trucks were there. It was just a shock. I didn’t know what to say. Just shocked.”

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“I was just standing next to my car,” he recalled. “The firefighters were trying to talk to me and I couldn’t even talk to them.”

Khan, the owner of Chutney, is one of dozens of small business owners picking up the pieces after the blaze. Police said 25 businesses were destroyed, with the damage totalling in the millions.

The suspected cause: arson.

A local food writer said the cluster of businesses at 92 Street and 34 Avenue is more than just a strip mall.

“Thirty-Four Plaza, it’s sacred to our community,” said Ramneek Singh. “Before the internet, the kids that grew up in the ’90s, that area kept us connected to our roots in terms of food. The Spice Centre, which was also affected, that’s where we got our Bollywood movies, that’s where we got our Punjabi albums. If it wasn’t for that area, a lot of us wouldn’t know our culture.”

The fire started shortly before 12:55 a.m. on April 8, police said. When emergency crews arrived, the building was engulfed in flames.

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Khan opened Chutney in Edmonton’s west end 15 years ago with his sister and brother-in-law, serving halal food including Pakistani kebabs, biryani, kormas and vegetarian dishes. It opened the second, larger location on the south side five years ago, allowing the lease on the original location to expire.

Khan hadn’t been granted access to the restaurant as of Saturday morning, but was told it suffered extensive smoke and water damage.

“We were growing and had another location coming up soon,” he said. The restaurant might be able to find another kitchen to cater summer banquets — some booked a year ago — but much remains up in the air.

Singh, who discovered Chutney on an “odyssey” to find Edmonton’s best butter chicken, started a GoFundMe to help Khan and pay his 10 employees while the establishment gets back on its feet.

Singh, accustomed to “watered-down,” westernized takes on the classic dish, was thrilled when he tried Chutney’s butter chicken. He recently filmed a segment at Chutney with celebrity chef Pati Jinich, whose new Panamericana show on PBS is set to highlight Edmonton in an episode next month.

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“Chutney gave me exactly what I needed,” he said. “It was just authentic food, it tasted like it was supposed to taste, it had the right levels of spice.”

The walls inside were a “celebration of culture” adorned with a “Mount Rushmore” of legendary Pakistani musicians, he said.

Khan was stunned when he learned police believe the fire was deliberately set.

“I’ve been in business the past 30 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen a fire like this. It’s ridiculous — someone’s trying to hurt businesses, small businesses.”

While police have made no direct link, Singh said the community is on edge after the series of extortion arsons targeting South Asian homebuilders.

“It’s unfortunate but it’s been plaguing our community for the past year or so, with all these extortion issues and fires,” he said. “I’m just hoping this isn’t an extension of that.”

Singh said the shopping centre provided a lifeline for new immigrants feeling homesick. Before joyous occasions like weddings, families would visit the fabric stores to buy textiles from India.

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“All of us Mill Woods kids grew up there,” Singh said. “It’s sad, because I have a feeling if 34 Avenue Plaza did not exist, a lot of us would not be able to speak our mother tongue, or wouldn’t be watching our movies. We wouldn’t know anything about what we were.”

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