Windsor Hotel Burns Down and Demolished

It was only in March that the Windsor Hotel was boarded up for safety and health reasons. This could have been far more tragic than losing a 120 year old building with an interesting history. Built in 1903 as the Le Clair apartments, it became the Windsor Hotel in 1930. Linked to Charlie Chaplin during the Vaudeville days, it found new life later on as a blues and jazz club. Now, it is rubble. How long it is rubble will be determined if there is asbestos within the wreckage.

Any chance of turning it into housing, boutique hotel or anything is gone. It will be a parking lot. And so it goes with any downtown building. It is always a rush to turn the spot into parking.  Given the continued slow return to work downtown, the question has to be asked: parking for whom?

The fire department has said a record 100 vacant building's have burned down so far in 2023. The cause listed is arson.  Many occupied buildings have had arsons as well. Even as the provincial election continues through to the vote October 3, there does not seem to be a concerted effort as there was in the 1990s to eliminate the threat. Moreover, the painfully slow process to remove rubble only grows with every fire.

Drug deaths are soaring and the desperation of addicts for shelter, money and resultant impulse control is seeing violent crime and property crime increase. Winnipeg is not unique in this. News from all over North America has reports of the harm that opiates in particular have wrought. The potency and overdoses keep going up and available law enforcement, health and addiction services are strained.

While we have not heard a definitive answer on what caused the fire, the officials on site seemed to lean towards arson. The Windsor Hotel will not be the last place building to end in fire. However, if there isn't a concerted effort to reduce arson, insurance companies could look at not insuring certain areas as we saw in the 1990s. Even now with a summer of fire in the forests, some insurance companies are evaluating the risks of their policies.

As the weather grows colder, the fear of more fires has to be in the minds of emergency services. If the bulk of the fires are limited to a few people, let's hope they are identified and removed as a risk factor for buildings and people.