Late Tuesday night last week, Feb. 27, a fire erupted at the former Wicked Slush business on Healdsburg Avenue that did considerable damage to the structure—for almost 50 years the location of canoe rental businesses and, more recently, the ice cream café.
“Upon arrival, our crews were met with a heavily involved structure. The fire was quickly extinguished, but the building did sustain significant damage,” read the social media post from the Healdsburg Fire Department.
Other responding agencies included Healdsburg Police, Northern Sonoma County Fire District, Sonoma County Fire District, Dry Creek Rancheria Fire Department, and CAL FIRE Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit.
Fire Marshall Lance Macdonald confirmed that the damage sustained during the fire was considerable. “A large portion of the building sustained fire damage, and the entire building has smoke damage,” he said.
Continued the social media release, “There were no injuries to either firefighters or the public. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation, and further updates will be provided as they become available.”
Though the cause of the fire is still officially under investigation, most people with an understanding of the building and its history—and its proximity to the homeless encampment on Syar Industries property on the other side of the railroad tracks—have little doubt the fire was set intentionally, if not maliciously.
Canoe Rentals
The structure, an extended mobile home, was moved onto the property in the 1970s, to serve as a headquarters for W.C. Trowbridge, whose canoe rental concession had already become a landmark for locals and tourists.
In 2005, Lolly Mercer—a former champion water skier who learned the sport at nearby Memorial Beach when the reservoir from the seasonal dam was larger than it is today—took over the business, changing its name to River’s Edge Kayak & Canoe.
First leasing, then purchasing the property, Mercer ran River’s Edge at that location before she moved the rental business to the nearby beach, on the upstream side of Memorial Bridge. It is still in operation there under different ownership.
Mercer sold the property to Amy Covin in 2016, and the next year Amy’s Wicked Slush was born. The soft-serve ice cream café became a sensation, revitalizing the approach to the bridge and Memorial Bridge. Other Wicked Slush cafés opened elsewhere in the county, not always with Covin’s approval.
But the homeless encampment became an ever-increasing headache, then a burden for Covin. Her patience wore thin after multiple interactions with the homeless, and minor vandalism occurred.
Fire Sale
After she quit the business last September, the property was put on the market by Lolly’s sister, Roxanne Mercer, and offered by Luxe Places International, of Healdsburg. But the vandalism continued, growing in both frequency and intensity, Mercer said. The building and the half-acre property it sits upon was listed for sale at $625,000.
Though she has shown it several times to prospective buyers, most recently just days before the fire, its value decreased steadily. Mercer said with the building empty, vandalism had only escalated. There were break-ins, and intentional slicing of electrical, plumbing and refrigeration elements. “When Amy moved out she turned off the electricity,” said the realtor. “That didn’t seem to make [the vandals] happy.”
The fact that there was no electricity to the building, and a steady record of malicious vandalism, implicates the nearby homeless population as a likely cause of the fire.
Last year the local nonprofit to assist in homeless services, Reach for Home, received part of a $4.6 million grant from the state to alleviate homeless encampments throughout the county, including the Joe Rodota Trail among others.
“The timeline is to be finished moving people off of Syar by the end of May,” said Margaret Sluyk, CEO of Reach for Home, adding that the grant includes a year and a half of services to help relocated individuals. The grant “to help those living on Syar Property is based on an individualized, staggered approach to help with stability and to make sure individuals don’t return to homelessness.”
The exact number of people still encamped on the widespread Syar property is unknown. “What we do know is we are working with all individuals south of Healdsburg and north of Healdsburg and everywhere in between on the river. We started with 42 individuals and are now at 21,” Sluyk told the Tribune, just weeks before the fire at Wicked Slush.
Note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of the owner of Wicked Slush, Amy Covin.
The burning down of the Wicked Slush is just another coda to the sad song of Old Healdsburg’s demise.
Right? Healdsburg, we hardly know you anymore.