Shortage of plate glass complicates cleanup from riot in Providence

After the riot in downtown Providence Monday night through early Tuesday morning, now it's the aftermath for business owners: The cleanup, the assessment of damage, and ordering new plate glass.

A rough count shows about one in four businesses, bars, restaurants, education centers, or non-profits sustained some kind of damage in the mayhem that erupted and swept through downtown Providence in the early morning hours Tuesday. Three out of four, though, were not.

Social media video, streaming live at the time, archived now to watch again, shows when Ajay Patel’s University Mart on Empire Street was being ransacked. He received the alarm at home, and drove down to the store.

“Mob scene. It was crazy,” says Patel, who has insurance, although he’s not sure if it covers a riot. “I hope so, let's see. Everything's new to me, you know? It's very, very hard.”

The store is back in business, some of his shattered windows boarded up with plywood.

“I called Somerset Glass, so they're going to take care of it,” he said. “They're two weeks out. They ordered everything, so it should take about two weeks to get fixed,” says Patel.

The damage downtown appears to be random, with one storefront hit, but then right next door, it's left unscathed. Security camera video shows a mob walking down one of the alleyways between Washington and Westminster Streets, one of them picking up a rock, then throwing it through a window without hesitation. “I think they were on the move so, as they were being chased, they were vandalizing as they were going,” says George Bovill, who co-owns GC Contractors, working on replacing some businesses’ windows.

Glass companies, backlogged already with the pandemic, are now swamped with new orders because of the riot. If Bovill was to guess, he says it may take up to a month for all those with broken windows to have them replaced.

But not everyone's in a hurry. At Clark the Locksmith, they're waiting another week to get the job done, just like across from Providence Place, where all the first-floor windows have been boarded up, covering seven that were broken, the rest for safety in case there's more trouble.

Even some of the establishments, or those next door, that were damaged have signs showing support for protests, and justice.

On a mobile chalkboard that would usually announce the wine specials at one store, instead it reads “George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Tony McDade. David McAtee. Say Their Names.”

Another reads a number of times “Black Lives Matter”.

And finally, “Justice for George Floyd”.