Comstock's magazine 1119 - November 2019 | Page 53

“It’s more like, ‘We are here to support you and help guide
and put you in contact with the resources available to you.’
We want to give them every chance of success.”
The town of Paradise has been promised $13 million an-
nually for the next 10 years from state and federal legislators
to help cover the town government’s operating expenses. The
money would help stabilize revenues due to the loss of sales
tax and allow for much-needed additional hires while recov-
ery continues. The town also is struggling with basic necessi-
ties like water. The Paradise Irrigation District still has a no-
drink advisory due to benzene contamination, and water has
to be brought into town in jugs or stored in tanks.
More than 600 businesses have been reported as either
damaged or destroyed by the Camp Fire, according to Cal
Fire Butte County, including the loss of Feather River Hos-
pital, multiple gas stations and fast-food restaurants, a hotel
and a large shopping center anchored by a Safeway.
But even the town’s chamber executives aren’t sure ex-
actly how many businesses were lost to the fire. “The town of
Paradise did not have business license regulation until very
recently before the fire, and so a lot of businesses were not in
compliance with regulations,” Nolan says. She estimated the
loss of the commercial sector to be about two-thirds. “We’re
“The town is going to take at least five
years to see successful businesses,
and I can’t wait that long.”
Manuel Tovalin, owner, Cafe de Paradiso
still gathering all the data on whether they’ve reopened and
where they’ve reopened.”
Laurie Noble, co-owner of Noble Orchards, says they had
plans 20 days after the fire to rebuild their cold storage unit,
but “that doesn’t mean any construction has started on it.”
First the dead trees have to be brought down, and they’re
still waiting for a logger to get back to them about the project.
Then they have to deal with all of the debris from that pro-
cess. Only then can they start to rebuild, and finding a con-
tractor to take it on will be no small task in a town overrun
with need-it-now projects.
“It’s just one little baby step at a time,” Noble says. “How
do we move forward? How do we establish housing? In our
case, we know the cold storage is absolutely critical to the op-
eration, so that is taking priority over a house.”
DOWN THE HILL
Skyway Road, a long stretch of old highway used by many
of the 27,000 residents f leeing the fire that November day,
leads directly into Chico. At the final mile at the end of the
hill and around the curve, a large billboard sponsored by
Dutch Bros. Coffee towers overhead with a message: “We
Love Paradise” — a friendly reminder that the quiet college
town of Chico has absorbed 19,000 of their former neigh-
bors in the past year.
It’s here, just across the street from that billboard, that a
beloved Paradise institution has decided to relocate. Cafe de
Paradiso reopened in August to local acclaim after serving
family-style Mexican dishes to its former community for al-
most 25 years in Paradise.
Owner Manuel Tovalin says he didn’t want to change the
menu or the atmosphere, so evacuees could have a touch of
their former lives, but he just wasn’t willing to risk his hard-
earned and imminent retirement — nor his children’s inher-
itance — in the murky economy of Paradise as it rebuilds.
“I had my life basically planned out, but I guess God didn’t
want us to keep going over there,” Tovalin says. “I had to relo-
cate because there are no people in Paradise.”
The restaurant has become a de facto slice of Paradise,
just 10 miles down the hill. Tovalin’s daughter Lucia says a
lot of customers have come into the restaurant and started to
cry. “They say it reminds them of Paradise,” Lucia says.
Tovalin’s home was lost to the fire, though the restaurant
was not. But with no place to live in Paradise, when he found
a low-slung building near a busy Highway 99 on-ramp, he
jumped at the opportunity to rebuild his business in Chico.
To add further grief and trauma, Tovalin lost his wife and
November 2019 | comstocksmag.com
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