ELLENVILLE – At approximately 10 a.m. on Thursday, July 30, the Ellenville Police Department, in conjunction with the Ulster Regional Gang Enforcement Narcotics Team (URGENT) Task Force from the Ulster County Sheriff Department and the Sheriff's K-9 Unit, descended upon Lou's Market at 76 1/2 Center Street in Ellenville. The police were executing a search and arrest warrant of the premises, and subsequently arrested the store's proprietor, Luis Jorge, 50, on charges of sales and distribution of illegal narcotics.

"We've had a lot of complaints that we've been working with URGENT on, and this is a culmination of several months' work," said Ellenville Police Chief Phil Mattracion at the scene. "We continue to aggressively target those people who think that they can traffic in illegal narcotics."

Jorge was charged with the possession and sale of drugs, felonies, and was remanded to Ulster County Jail without bail. It has been reported that Jorge was found in possession of liquid morphine, diverted prescription drugs, syringes, a scale, and drug packaging materials, which were recovered by the police after a search of the store. After the arrest was made, the village's building inspector arrived and found state fire code violations.

"I found that there were frayed electrical wires, some extremely old building wiring that was operating the coolers and freezers inside of the business," said Brian Schug, the village's building code enforcement officer who was called to the scene on Thursday. "At that point, since the building was unoccupied, I deemed it hazard enough that it could have caused a fire."

As a result of Schug's findings, the building was immediately condemned, and at around 2 p.m., the Ellenville Street Department arrived to board up the entrance to the building. Central Hudson cut the building's power, and the building's occupancy was prohibited until the owners filed a building permit to make corrections, said Schug.

"They're effectively out of business," remarked Sergeant Jeff Van Asselt as the street department workers went about boarding up the entrance.

In addition to the arrest, several people who were inside the store at the time of the execution of the warrant were detained until they were deemed to not be a part of the investigation. As a result of that, a female relative of Jorge became emotionally overcome and began complaining of chest pains, describing symptoms such as pain going up her arm. She had been sent across the street, where numerous pedestrians had gathered, and she could be seen pouring bottled water over herself while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. At about 11:45 a.m., the Ellenville Rescue Squad arrived to take her to Ellenville Regional Hospital.

According to eye-witnesses, members of the URGENT Task Force emerged from unmarked vehicles earlier that morning to execute the warrant. After that, the area was cordoned off with police tape, and officers were stationed on either side of the store to prevent pedestrians from walking into the scene while the investigation was underway.

Regarding the fire code violations, Schug elaborated a few days later on what he found, and what he would've done had Jorge not been arrested.

""If there was someone there that I could reasonably talk to, an owner or an owner's representative, I probably would've allowed them 24 hours to remedy the violations," said Schug. "They were some serious electrical code violations, enough to where it could've went [up in flames] at any time."

Schug's caution and findings seems prudent in light of the recent destructive fire at the corner of Maple Avenue and Yankee Place, which was thankfully not fatal, an outcome many have credited in large part to the building department's diligence.

"A fire code inspection was performed about a year and a half ago, and it didn't come up on that fire code inspection," said Schug, adding that White Oak Fire Safety was the company to which the village subcontracts fire safety inspections.

"I don't know if the problem was existing a year and a half ago, or if it was exposed to the point where it is now. There is a note in the file that did state that the basement had a lot of clutter in it, so what I'm assuming is that…the clutter was covering some of the wiring that [became] more exposed, visually, once that clutter was removed out of the basement."