Local businesses helping downtown Birmingham pick up the pieces after violent protesting

BIRMINGHAM, Ala (WBMA) — Businesses in downtown Birmingham are having to continue to clean up the damage from a long night of protesting and riots Sunday night.

Gusty Gulas has his own real estate business and has put a team together to help pick up the pieces of Birmingham businesses who experienced damage.

“I knew we had to do something so I reached out to my team and said hey lets be a part of the cleanup and maybe we can add some positivity to our community and so immediately I had the majority of our team saying lets do this and then I just made a post on social media about it and all of a sudden we had more people interested in helping out," said Gulas.

Through donations Gulas was able to get plywood to help board up business and have been able to help more than a dozen businesses since Monday.

The historic Alabama Theater is one of them.

“When we arrived on Monday morning there was just glass all over the place but people in the community were already coming out to help clean up everything and we got everything boarded up but we are a non-profit and that’s already under a lot of strain because of COVID-19," said Alabama Theater venue manager Cindy Mullins.

The Oak Mountain Glass Company partnered with Gulas and offered discounts to replace broken glass at the Lyric and Alabama Theaters.

“We really just wanted to be able to someway help our community," said Oak Mountain Glass Company office manager Barkley Byrd.