Bonfire of the conspiracies

A Monday morning fire allegedly set by a knife-wielding resident at Rachel and Ste-Dominique left 10 people homeless and also emphatically ended a long-running dispute between a shoe shop owner and the local fire prevention squad. The irascible Ludwig Karls, owner of the landmark Karls Shoes, which has stood at Rachel and the Main since 1936, blames the firemen for letting his building burn and destroying what he estimates as $1-million of his uninsured property. “I think it was done on purpose,” he says. “The fire department was after me, they came every week to hound me.”

Karls has had a simmering dispute with Montreal fire officials since October 1994, when inspectors condemned his shoe store as a fire hazard. Karls tried to start repairs but fought an $8,000 repair bill with a contractor in court, leading him to lose a $43,000 court decision. While the required repairs remained undone, Karls was barred from his building and could occasionally be seen outside on a lawn chair, entering to fetch shoes for sidewalk transactions.

By spring 2000 Karls reopened and he was confident things would stay that way even after seeing the blaze begin. “The fire chief, the guy with the white hat, said it’s a little fire and we’ll put it out, there’s no danger of it spreading,” says Karls. “He told me it’ll be contained in the back and there’s no danger to my store.” It wasn’t, and there was. :

—Kristian Gravenor