ST ANDREW, Jamaica — A St Andrew business operator is calling for assistance for his staff following a New Year’s Day fire that gutted his catering bar and grill on Spanish Town Road and left more than 15 people out of work.

“What a way to ring in the new year,” Chef Ricardo Esson, the managing director of Paradise Catering and Dobby’s Hideaway Bar and Grill, told Observer Online while standing in the burnt building.

Esson explained that the fire broke out just after midnight and damaged the restaurant’s warehouses, resulting in the loss of most of the business’s equipment. No staff members were injured in the incident.

Despite the significant damage, Esson said his primary concern is the welfare of his employees. He explained that once investigations by the fire department are completed and the business reopens, he may be forced to place staff on a week-on, week-off schedule.

“We work together as a family and as a family we are hurting but at the same time, it means that I can’t carry the full team anymore…It’s still hard because losing a job at this time at the start of the year it is very hard… I just recently hired a young man who barely can make it for his family and he called me, and he said, ‘Sir, wah mi a go do?” Esson shared.

As a result, heis appealing to corporate Jamaica and long-standing clients for support.

“So I am reaching out to corporate Jamaica, my corporate clients who are out there who continue to believe in us, who continue to give us a chance to shine, I am asking you to give us some more chances so we can shine, so we can continue to provide meals for your staff for your events, and also we can provide for our team and their families,” Esson said.

Vincent Myers, who owns the entire complex and operates a bar on the property, said the fire left him with nothing to celebrate at the start of the new year.

Noting that he has been in the space for over 30 years, Myers said, “[It’s] my life savings because mi nah work again, mi ah 80 yah now.”

He is confident that with assistance to restock and clean the premises, he would be able to retain his customer base. However, he emphasised the need for careful planning before rebuilding.

“Mi have to have a proper plan, a complete plan…it nuh make sense to put up another board structure,” Myers said.

Labelling it a total loss for proprietors, Whitfield Town Division Councillor Eugene Kelly lamented the result, indicating that Dobby’s was a second-generation inner-city business that had always invested in the community.

“The employees here number in, nearly 20 of them and you know each of those employees [represent] an entire family— two, three generations depend on each of them so you’re looking at hundreds of persons impacted by this damage,” he said.

Describing small businesses as the lifeline of inner city communities and the wider economy, he called for a fund to help them in case of emergencies.

“We have to place a special focus on how we are able to assist small businesses to recover, many of them not able to properly and sufficiently insure against such damage…Those in authority at the governmental level must see how best they can better assist small business owners in this regard and in also setting up a rebuilding fund for small businesses in such events,” Kelly said.