This story is on line at monroenews.com, it happened too late in the day to be in the print edition of The Monroe Evening News: Monroe store burns, arson suspected.

A snippet:

A suspected arson fire caused extensive damage to a Monroe grocery store this morning.

Owner Nabil Bally and his wife were inside the Monroe Food Center at E. Fourth and Winchester Sts. at the time of the fire, but both evacuated the building safely. …

The Monroe Food Center opened this spring in the building that formerly housed KKs Discount Drinks. Mr. Bally purchased the 6,200-square-foot building and renovated it into a grocery store that stocks household items, dairy products, beer and wine, produce and fresh-cut meats.

He said he wanted to make the store a convenient place to shop for the local people in the surrounding neighborhood…

Think about the impact of the neighborhood residents who are the “collateral damage” in this incident. Their local grocery store is gone.

Yes, there are several grocery stores – both locally owned and retail chains – in various neighborhoods across Monroe. But that was the only grocery on that side of town.

Very sad.