FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Two stores were forced to close after a car crashed into the front of a shopping plaza on Cleveland Avenue near Winkler Avenue.<\/p>\n
Security camera video shows a car crashing into the shopping plaza around 1:30 a.m. Monday, knocking down a concrete light pole and ripping three support beams from the ground. The car flipped onto its roof after going airborne.<\/p>\n
Fort Myers Police arrested Tiago Da Cruz Caetano, 23, the car’s registered owner. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance and cited for leaving the scene of a crash involving property damage. A firearm was also recovered from the vehicle.<\/p>\n
Video shows a man who appears to be shirtless running from the car. Minutes later, a second person crawls from the car.<\/p>\n
Caetano was transported to Lee Memorial Hospital for medical clearance before being taken to the Lee County Jail. The investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n
Marilyn Skidelsky, who owns the shopping plaza and Seduction! Intimate Playthings, said the timing couldn’t be worse.<\/p>\n
“Business is hard enough for a brick and mortar store, let alone have to close down,” Skidelsky said. “And as you can see, we’re all prepared for Halloween, and that is one of our biggest weeks. So to have no entry tapes up, it’s not a good thing.”<\/p>\n
Skidelsky said she had to call her employees and tell them to stay home. The closure affects 10 employees at Seduction! and Good Fellas Smoke Shop, the two stores impacted by the crash.<\/p>\n
“I had to call and tell the girls that they didn’t have a job today, to stay home,” Skidelsky said. “So that’s difficult. It’s a domino effect.”<\/p>\n
Fort Myers Code Enforcement placed “no entry” notices on both stores until the building’s structural safety can be verified. Crews worked to cut down the damaged support poles and install temporary supports in their place.<\/p>\n
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Skidelsky said the support beams protected the glass storefronts from being destroyed.<\/p>\n
“These posts that were into the ground, he hit them hard,” Skidelsky said.<\/p>\n
Robert Mason, who works at Rob the Phone Doctor a few doors down, said this was the third crash in the area in five years and by far the worst.<\/p>\n
“If it wasn’t for those poles, the the both the tobacco shop and seductions would have plywood all across their doors,” Mason said.<\/p>\n
Mason said the crash will have lasting financial consequences for the property owner.<\/p>\n
“She has to now probably pay 20%-30% more every year for many years because she had to make such a major claim,” Mason said. “It’s terrible.”<\/p>\n
Skidelsky expressed anger about the crash and its impact on her business.<\/p>\n
“This is not the way to stop,” Skidelsky said. “Stop and shop. Don’t stop because you crashed into the building.”<\/p>\n
The business owners said they will have to remain closed until the front is repaired, but they don’t know when that will be. Skidelsky hopes the temporary supports will be enough to get the city’s clearance so the stores can reopen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Two stores were forced to close after a car crashed into the front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,28,897,3737,503,356],"class_list":["post-426759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers","tag-fort-myers-police","tag-halloween","tag-lee-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}