The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

and NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Reporters

A BISX-listed food retail and franchise group yesterday confirmed that no jobs will be lost as a result of the huge blaze that devastated its two East-West Highway stores.

Renea Bastian, AML Foods’ vice-president of marketing and communications, said that while the group is still waiting for an official update from fire officials to determine the extent of the damage to its Solomon’s Old Trail and Cost Right stores, it plans to deploy impacted staff to its other New Providence locations and activate its business continuity plan once the all-clear is obtained.

“We’re happy that we had no injuries. But we’re just waiting now, like everybody else, to see what’s going to happen, and then we will go from there,” said Ms Bastian. “I mean, the good thing about it is that we have other stores, so the plan will be to move staff to other locations so that they’re not impacted.

“A company this size always has a continuity plan, a disaster relief plan. So, we just basically have to enact that and go from there. We don’t know anything official. They have told us to stand back, which we have, so we’re just waiting for an official update.”

Ms Bastian confirmed that AML Foods, and its stores are insured for fire damages and situations such as business interruption, and voiced relief that no staff members or customers were hurt during the blaze while firefighters only received minor injuries.

“Yes, we have insurance, but like I said, most importantly, we’re just happy that nobody was hurt, nobody was injured. We prepare for these things. Unfortunately, these things happen, but we were prepared,” she added.

“Our protocols and our policies that we have in place worked, so we’re most happy about that. You know, all of this stuff can be replaced. Nobody was injured. I know they, unfortunately, had a couple of firefighters, but those were, thank God, non-threatening injuries and they’re expected to be okay. Everybody is safe. Everybody’s accounted for. We had no injuries with our team members. That the most important thing.”

The blaze, which is understood to have caused the roof to cave in at both the Solomon’s and Cost Right stores, comes after AML Foods just invested $22m in acquiring the 80,000 square feet that both retail formats occupy.

Solomon’s Old Trail was opened last July following its conversion from Solomon’s SuperCentre into AML Foods’ neighbourhood food store format, while Cost Right only just relocated to the site in November 2024 following its exit from the Town Centre Mall.

The fire, which tore through the entire Hyacinth Stuart Building apart from Solomon’s Old Trail and Cost Right, has also disrupted and delayed, at the very least, the Department of Labour’s planned relocation into its office space in that building on May 1, 2025.

Howard Thompson, director of labour, yesterday confirmed that had been the planned move-in day with the Department just waiting on completion of contracts with security and cleaning providers prior to the fire. Besides the Department of Labour, other government agencies supposed to move into that property are the Department of Immigration and Disaster Risk Management Authority.

Multiple Tribune Business sources have suggested that the Hyacinth Stuart Building, apart from the Solomon’s and Cost Right space, is owned by Island Luck co-founder, Adrian Fox, and his Fox Group of Companies. This newspaper’s staff saw multiple trucks bearing the Fox Group of Companies logo on-site frequently during the renovation of the building.

Several attempts were made to contact to contact Fox Group of Companies representatives but no response was received by press time. They would be the Government’s landlord, leasing space in the building to its various agencies.

Mr Thompson, in a previous interview, said the move to that location would have combined the Department of Labour’s Rosetta Street and Robinson Road offices into one, while leaving the Carmichael Road site as a standalone. The building was also due to house the National Tripartite Council, the body responsible for all labour matters in The Bahamas, and the National Apprenticeship Programme.

The labour director said the benefits of such a move would have been “a better facility, being able to combine those offices, so lower rent and accommodation for the National Apprenticeship Programme”. Mr Thompson said the Department of Labour was due to occupy a “sliver”, or just one-quarter, of the building with the rest allocated to Immigration and, somewhat ironically, Disaster Risk Management.

This was confirmed by Pia Glover-Rolle, minister of labour and the public service, who said the building was newly-renovated but employees had not officially moved into the space. She added that the Department of Labour was set to move in first, and had already installed furniture and relocated some files.

“The Ministry of Labour and Public Service serves as the landlord for the Government. So my ministry has responsibility for all buildings. The Department of Labour was one of the ministries that would have been moving into this building, along with the Department of Immigration, DRM, the Disaster Authority. None of the ministries have moved in officially yet,” said Mrs Glover-Rolle.

“The Department of Labour was in closer proximity to moving in. We have had furniture installed, and there are some files in the building. But, fortunately, there are no staff that occupy the building. Those staff that were present were on our final walk through this morning in preparation for moving, and that was about ten persons and, of course, they were able to evacuate safely and remove themselves from the building.”

Mrs Glover-Rolle said the Government was leasing the space, and had already began paying rent, but that agreement would be “reviewed” as the building is restored.

“The ministry doesn’t make an investment. This is a building that would be rented by the Government, which would be leased and that would be a rental agreement, and we have started paying the rent because, of course, we were beginning to occupy the building. So now that would need to be reviewed as the building is brought back to its full state,” she added.

Although the cause of the fire has not been revealed by law enforcement, reporters were advised that it broke out behind the Department of Labour’s new building and staff and customers were evacuated from Solomon’s and Cost Right after 11am.