A Great Barrington, Massachusetts man is facing arson, insurance fraud and other charges after a fire at his business earlier this month.
The Great Barrington Fire Department responded to the fire at the old Wonderful Things gift shop building at 232 Stockbridge Road on the evening of July 7th.
“It was a challenging fire in an old building. We had fire on multiple floors on arrival, which is very manpower intensive, particularly in an old building where fire spreads very fast in old construction with many void spaces- So it was great job by our firefighters to knock the fire down and honestly preserve most of the building," said Fire Chief Charles Burger. "We called in the State Fire Marshal's Office to investigate. And they, along with the Great Barrington Police Department, investigated the fire and yesterday they made an arrest of Harry Sano, the owner of the building for arson.”
Mutual aid companies from Sheffield and Monterey also responded to the fire.
Sano’s charges don’t stop with arson of a dwelling house.
“The building owner did file an insurance claim on the building for the fire damage, which was deemed to be arson,” said Burger.
That led to additional charges of presenting a false insurance claim and burning a building to defraud an insurer in connection with the fire.
“Our investigator officer, Joe O’Brien, along with the investigators from the State Fire Marshal has been working diligently since the night of the fire to try to understand how the fire started and what took place," said Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti. “Through their investigation, it led them to request a search warrant for the home of Mr. Sano. As a result of the investigation and the execution of a search warrant, Mr. Sano was placed under arrest.”
Storti says arson is rare in the town of 7,000, but a few incidents have cropped up over the years.
“It not only impacts the community, but it also puts the first responders, the firefighters at risk, you know. They're the ones who are there, you know, to control or try to combat the fire. So arson is dangerous for everybody, not just the community, the people, surrounding businesses, the surrounding buildings. But also more importantly, the firefighters, the first responders, the EMS people who have to, you know, handle that situation.”
It’s not the first time the 232 Stockbridge Road property has been on the town’s radar.
“I started as health agent in 2016, 2017. And this, this is kind of how I got my feet wet with housing, housing concerns. 2017, there was a carbon monoxide leak in the building. And that was my first interaction with 232 Stockbridge Road," said Health Agent Rebecca Jurczyk. She says the rental units at the property have been the subject of much attention from Great Barrington.
“We started the process back in 2017, of issuing a correction order on violations that we saw in all four units," Jurczyk continued. "Fast forward to 2018, the units were all unoccupied. So we left the correction order outstanding until the units were re occupied. Somewhere along the line there, there was some confusion and the units were reoccupied without the board of health's consent. We started getting complaints in October of 2020, so we did another inspection of all four units then. And since last fall, really, we've been working with the property owners to rehab some violations that started back in 2017, as well as some new ones.”
Just a day after the fire, the town’s board of health moved to condemn the building.
Sano, 85, was due to be arraigned in Southern Berkshire District Court on Monday. The court could not confirm if he has legal representation at this time. Deborah Sano, his wife, told WAMC News the family had “absolutely no comment to anyone” when reached Thursday.
