The scene at John's Park following the hit and run incident at McCormack's Londis.
THE owners of McCormack’s Londis at St John’s Park, have been left to count the cost of a ‘hit and run’ incident that damaged the façade of the building – less than a week after the shop reopened its doors to the public.
The incident, which occurred at approximately 3am on Thursday, October 8th, came only days after Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin, and other local members of the party including Cllrs Mary Murphy, Jason Murphy and Adam Wyse, officially reopened the store – praising the shop’s important role in keeping the local community alive.
Speaking to The Munster Express, shop co-owner, Joe McCormack, labelled the incident as misfortune, stating that it was “very unlikely that any deliberate fowl play was involved”.
“From what we know it looks a four-wheel drive vehicle was stolen from the city centre before driving out towards St Johns Park,” he said.
“For reasons unknown it then reversed twice into our shop. From the CCTV footage it looked like impact raised a lot of dust – either from the car or the building itself. This seemed to have spooked the drivers out, so they turned around and drove back towards town.”
Lamenting that everything on the building’s façade at ground level required replacing along with some structural work, Joe calculates that the cost of the incident will range from €15,000 to €20,000
“Doors, windows, locks, shutters – everything has been damaged in some shape or form,” said Mr McCormack. “While that’s just a ballpark figure, I have the insurance company coming out at some point this week to access the full cost. It could be more than that.”
While Joe counts himself lucky that the incident did not occur during opening hours, there is no official word on convictions made in relation to the incident as of yet.
