Fire destroyed about 20 bundles of newspapers delivered April 25 by the printer to The Islander’s office in Holmes Beach.
About 1,000 newspapers were stacked on a pallet outside the office at 3218 E. Bay Drive, awaiting pickup by Islander overnight delivery workers.
A Walgreens employee called 911 at 11:13 p.m. April 25 when a customer reported an outdoor fire.
She told a 911 emergency communications dispatcher: “There’s a big stack of newspapers that somebody left … It’s on fire and it’s right in front of a store.”
“The customer came in and told me someone had set them on fire,” the clerk added.
Holmes Beach Officer Mike Walker was the first emergency responder at 11:14 p.m.
Walker reported using a fire extinguisher from Walgreens to bring the fire under control.
Walgreens manager Alex Kuizon told Walker a few minutes before the store was alerted to the fire, a customer had been yelling obscenities and was ordered to leave the store.
The next day, HBPD Officer Josh Fleischer viewed Walgreens surveillance video and interviewed the man, a 47-year-old male, who was found loitering in the parking lot.
The man told Fleischer he hadn’t seen the fire, according to the HBPD report. Fleischer told the man, who appeared intoxicated, to leave the center.
According to Walgreens clerk Courtney Tinsley, the same man told her earlier that day that he had been “partying” with a group of people at the shopping center the night of the fire.
The man had spent the morning telling people he was stranded after the shrimp boat he worked on broke down near Cortez. He solicited money from some workers and customers in the center.
The Islander confirmed the man had been fired April 23 from a shrimp boat that had docked for repair at A.P. Bell Fish House in Cortez.
West Manatee Fire Marshal Jim Davis said he couldn’t confirm the fire was intentional.
The WMFR report indicates a fire engine arrived as HBPD was using the extinguisher and finished extinguishing it with 2.5 gallons of water.
Davis said a cigarette butt could have smoldered on the papers before igniting.
“What we have now is it’s basically a nuisance fire,” Davis said.