Rubble was still burning from an extra-alarm fire in Albany Park early Monday when questions arose about the landlord of an apartment building that was gutted along with a popular brewery and a martial arts gym.
Even though fire officials on the scene could not say where the fire started or how, attention focused on Gary Carlson, who has a history of code violations at the dozens of properties he owns in the area.
Public records show he was under city orders to fix electrical problems at the building in the 4300 block of North Richmond Street. Displaced residents complained about trash and rowdy neighbors. A state legislator said he had a “bad feeling” about the building.
But the landlord told the Sun-Times he is being falsely accused. Carlson claimed a witness saw the brewery, Twisted Hippo, burning before the fire spread across an alley to all four floors of his apartment building.
“It’s all about a landlord being guilty until they prove themselves innocent, right?” Carlson said. “As a landlord in the city of Chicago, guilty until you prove yourself innocent instead of the opposite way around. Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
An extra-alarm fire destroyed an apartment building and heavily damaged Twisted Hippo Brewery and Ultimate Ninjas.Anthony Vazquez | Chicago Sun-Times
Carlson said he got a message from the daughter of a tenant saying “she saw the Hippo, Hippo whatever it is, burning. And then the fire spread to my building, not the other way around. That’s it.”
He added that the brewery “had the highly flammable materials in there. I don’t blame anybody. But why are they blaming me?”
The co-owner of the brewery could not be reached about Carlson’s comments. But she told reporters at the scene earlier in the day that tanks of carbon dioxide and nitrogen were inside the building and may have exploded in the fire.
Fire officials said Monday night the fire appeared to have started under one of two stair sets that were in between the commercial and the apartment building.
Fire crews were called around 3:45 a.m. and the alarm was quickly raised to a 3-11 as the fire burned through the apartment building, the brewery and Ultimate Ninjas next door, officials said.
Fire officials said all the residents were able to escape their apartments but a 60-year-old man was taken in serious condition to Swedish Covenant Hospital with smoke inhalation.
The owner of the brewery, Marilee Rutherford, said someone in the neighborhood alerted her to the fire.
“It’s hard to see everything you worked for go up in flames, but I’m just glad my staff and everyone is OK,” she told reporters. “That’s all I’m focused on.”
Twisted Hippo opened in January of 2019 at a site where three other breweries had opened and quickly closed. Rutherford said looking at the charred remains was “a little unreal. It’s hard. It’s going to be hard, but we are lucky to have had it, and we will see how we move forward.”
By the afternoon, an online fundraising effort had collected more than $64,000 to cover Rutherford’s costs from the fire.
Carlson said he was told the city may order his building torn down, though to him it looked like it was “perfectly salvageable.”
He said he was thankful that nobody was hurt and sorry that families were suddenly left homeless. Carlson insisted that he always responded to any issues tenants and neighbors brought to his attention.
“There is absolutely no appreciation factor for landlords,” he said. We’re all money-grubbing ass—– to put off all their maintenance, take the money and run. And nothing can be the further from the truth. “