Bill's Flea Market won't reopen at Beach site after fire

VIRGINIA BEACH

Two weeks ago, with $300 she had saved from her $250-a-week job, Brittany Strawhand became an entrepreneur.

She opened a booth at Bill's Flea Market off Virginia Beach Boulevard, selling secondhand baby stuff - strollers, cribs, clothes and the like.

Tuesday afternoon, she sat inside one of about a dozen cars that peppered the parking lot at Bill's, all of them with occupants staring ahead at the building.

Her new business was the victim of a fire on Monday that heavily damaged the old FX building and the wares of the 65 vendors who sold there.

"It's hard to stay home," said Brittany, 17. "It's like your house burning down and not being there with your family."

Robin Barry, the owner of Bill's - she doesn't own the building, just the flea market business - brought in some pizza around 2 p.m. to draw the vendors out of their cars.

Around a weathered plywood table, they talked about what comes next.

Barry said she won't reopen at the boulevard location near Town Center, which has housed Bill's for about a dozen years.

She's putting out a plea for a 25,000- to 33,000-square-foot building and a landlord willing to work with her while she gets back on her feet.

"I have never begged before," Barry said. "But now, I'm begging."

The profit margins on a used DVD or pair of slacks, bought and resold, are not large. It's enough to get by for the vendors, many of whom make this their full-time job. It doesn't bring in enough to set much aside.

"They need this to survive and pay the bills," Barry said. "I have no income now, either."

Insurance companies wouldn't sell insurance to the vendors, Barry said. Some, such as Fatima Colson, lost thousands of dollars in inventory.

Colson said she saw the smoke as she drove east on Virginia Beach Boulevard on Monday, a small plume at first. "Maybe it's from the doughnut shop," she thought.

As she got closer, her thoughts turned to: "Please, don't let it be Bill's."

The fire, which started in the adjacent Allied Technology Group building about 11:30 a.m. Monday after a light ignited some pallets, burned for more than 12 hours. It left 6 inches of water on the floor in Bill's, and smoke damage throughout.

Bill's has moved a couple of times before in its 20-plus-year history, back when "Old Bill" Barry ran the place, before it moved into the former FX building - a circa-1980s electronics store that was as short-lived as it was ambitious.

Robin Barry said she was just getting ready to put up a sign declaring her new business name: "Beach Flea Market." She laments the timing and circumstances but said she won't miss the porous old building.

On Saturday, Barry said, there will be a flea market outside the building - a "We Survived the Fire Sale." Later, when they recover their stuff, will come the real "Fire Sale."

"You might as well take advantage of the situation," said Dan O'Leary, who sells car-window stickers, which he and his wife turned to after the bullish Beanie Babies market turned bearish.

Barry doesn't know when she and the other vendors will be allowed back inside. A roof beam has to be repaired first.

"Most of our stuff is ruined," she said. "There's not a whole lot here to be saved."

John Warren, (757) 221-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com.