POST FIRE NEWS – ONE WEEK AFTER FIRE - 8 JUNE 2020

It has been a roller coaster week, shock, worry about insurance coverage, then not so much when we thought we’d be OK, then finding out that we may not be so OK.

Right now we have no idea what exactly will be covered – the agent from our local brokerage and the adjuster from the Insurance company are debating the coverage – and the wording of the policy – if they cannot agree, you can imagine that I cannot understand what is included, and what is not.

I expect that my contents will be covered – but it appears that all shelving will not be, and that all of my computers might be considered contents and not Data Processing Equipment. If my contents insurance is eaten up by things I cannot sell it will be very difficult to rebuild with enough stock to make a living. So, we shall see. We have to trust that all will be well in the end!

In the meantime while dealing with all of this, we have moved a computer into our new retail space – formerly known as the dining room. The wonderful people at Georgian Bay Software have helped get printers of all sorts working. I have supplied the line by line list of my inventory to the Insurance company – and my software program has been cleared of all inventory quantities, keeping a record only of orders not yet received or placed, and I can now begin again.

I have opened boxes of books that arrived last week. I have called customers whose special orders have arrived – and I can actually sell books again. There will be new copies of recent books arriving, and books I was ordering for stock before the fire will arrive each day.

For now I will work from 41 Church Street, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 am – 4 pm. This is my home, where we started Parry Sound Books in 1988, before moving into a newly renovated Beatty Building in 1992. 

There is a porch, and a large front hall immediately before the dining room where I have a sales desk – and my very large dining room table to spread out paperwork and label books. I have emptied some shelves on a hutch for office supplies and special orders and I will bring some of the least damaged shelving from the basement of the Beatty Building to display new books in a way that I can find them easily. Once I get this all organized, I will open the four big boxes of sale books that just arrived and put a sale table in the front hall.

I will be wearing a mask, and will feel most comfortable if customers will do the same. I have lots of hand sanitizer made by the people at Still Waters Distillery who made a donation to me when I planned to re-open.

Most amazing, and humbling, are the hundreds of emails and Facebook comments of support for me, and for the business – many from customers I do not know by name. You are all why I am determined to do my very best to continue working and hope that Parry Sound Books will survive, and thrive, for many more years in spite of this misfortune.

Thank you!