The looting of Maxi Mall was a devastating loss for the uninsured owner of Chill Stylz. But he's plunging ahead.
By SHARON L. BOND
Published May 19, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - Looters snatched only the pants from the dressy outfits William M. Gaye had hanging on the walls in Chill Stylz. But throughout the rest of the tiny store, they grabbed entire outfits of the hip, trendy clothes.
They nearly cleaned him out.
Gaye is one victim of last week's disturbances in St. Petersburg. Chill Stylz was at the front of Maxi Mall in Maximo Plaza, one of the areas where looters broke into and damaged stores. They used the disturbances on 18th Avenue S over the TyRon Lewis civil trial as their cover. He estimates his losses between $12,000 and $18,000.
"The riot was their reason for coming in at that time," said Gaye, a 30-year-old African-American. "Their excuse, rather."
A week later, Gaye is trying to figure out how to reopen the business he had been building for four years. He was not insured and has only a little cash. He needs about $10,000 to restock the store. His wife is attending St. Petersburg College and so is not working. They have two small children. Gaye earned what they live on. He also put money back into the store. He said he does not buy stock for the store on credit.
The late evening news had not yet come on last Wednesday when Gaye got a call from his cousin that looters were headed for Maxi Mall at 34th Street S and 43rd Avenue, which is well outside the boundaries of Midtown. He thought his cousin was kidding because he didn't know anything about the disturbances. Several more calls from the cousin convinced him.
He drove to the mall. He saw the crowd at the front of the mall and kept on driving.
"I knew if they got in that way (the front) they had hit my store. I went by the next morning."
Gaye went early, about 7 a.m., and looked through the windows. Then he had to go home for a while it upset him so. He was in and out of the mall later that day, but it was Sunday before he could go to the store and take an inventory.
Chill Stylz represents a number of years of work for Gaye, a trim man who wears the hip clothes well.
"I've been there since about two months after the mall opened" in late 2000, Gay said of Chill Stylz. "My store carried some of the most expensive stuff in the mall."
He believes he was targeted because of his upscale merchandise. An outfit of baggy denim shorts with a short-sleeve jacket by Phat Farm retails for $125 at Chill Stylz. Not all of the booths in the mall were hit.
"Other clothing stores were basically untouched," he said.
Other shops robbed and damaged included shoe stores, electronics booths and jewelry kiosks.
Gaye said he was not able to insure his store because the mall is considered an open-air market - the booths don't have ceilings.
He spent about 12 hours each day at the mall, arriving before the 10:30 opening to get the store cleaned, inspect the inventory and put change in the register.
In addition to the clothing store, he has an auto detailing business at the back of the mall.
Gaye said he spent the past four years cultivating clothing shops in New York and California from which he buys his stock. He chose those two states because he can find men's fashions that aren't common in Florida. He called those suppliers after the break-in and asked them to please give him the best prices they could on his next buying trip, which will have to come soon.
"I barely have anything left to start with," Gaye said. He estimates the looters left behind about $2,000 worth of clothing. At least one of the 20 initial arrests after Wednesday's disturbances was for commercial burglary from the Maxi Mall.
He is haunted by the belief that at least some of the looters were his customers taking advantage of a way to get stuff free.
"It will be hard to look some people in the face and wonder if they did it," he said.
Gaye said he had been dreaming of owning his own business for five or six years. His past is a bit blotched.
"I wasn't always a model kid," he said. Rather than detail his past, he said he hung around the wrong people in the neighborhood. Gaye's mother lives in Midtown. He lives on Coquina Key.
He vows he will open the store again. He will not backslide to the blotches in his past, he says. And he is not afraid to work.
