Update: If we understand correctly, two occupants suffered minor burns.
Black smoke poured out of a Boca Dunes condo earlier this afternoon. We learned of the incident from readers and from Palm Beach County Fire Rescue on Twitter.
As best we understand it, this incident occurred in one of the condo buildings on the west side of Lyons Road near SW 8th Street, south of Palmetto Park Road.
Readers sent us several images including the one at the top of this article. Here are a few of the Fire Rescue team in action:
A couple of readers sent us pictures of the scene from other angles:
Fire Rescue posted a close-up of the aftermath of the fire on Twitter:
As best we can tell there were no serious injuries from this incident. We haven’t seen any reports suggesting otherwise. Fire Rescue was ready with a stretcher:
We know our readers appreciate the quick and thorough response from the Fire Rescue team. We do too.
Tag: lyons
Organic Market Coming to Boca Lyons Plaza
4th Generation Market and Cafe is working on opening a new store in Boca Lyons Plaza. We noticed a couple signs up today so we stopped by and took a look. It’s where the Ethan Allen store used to be, next to Utopia Bagel and not far from Shen’s Peking.
This will be their second location (that we know of). The first is near Royal Palm Place, south of Palmetto Park Road near Federal Highway. That apparently opened in 2009. It’s a family business that dates back in various forms over 100 years.
4th Generation Organic Market … caters to vegans, vegetarians, and raw foodies. We offer Organic Grocery, Produce and Prepared Food, including organic meats and seafood dishes ….
For now it looks like they won’t be opening soon. We got a glimpse of the inside and they have a long way to go.
More Traffic Problems in West Boca
We’ve had multiple reports of traffic problems today in West Boca. Earlier today there was a bad accident on the Turnpike that caused serious backups both northbound and southbound near Glades Road. Red lines, from Google Traffic, are bad news.
That appears to have cleared up. Around 1 pm we were notified of a mess at Lyons and Glades Road and we actually saw it as we were leaving Stallone’s. Fortunately for us we were going the other way. That had to do with a traffic light being out.
Just now we heard that 441 is closed near New England Blvd due to another traffic light being out.
And we also heard that the light at Lyons and Yamato may be out. Google Maps shows traffic problems in both of those areas, though fortunately it doesn’t look too bad.
It’s just one of those days.
Car Burglaries in South Sandalfoot Cove & Loggers' Run
We just had two readers report a number of car burglaries from last night in two neighborhoods. The first is northwest of Lyons and SW 18th, toward the southern end of Sandalfoot Cove.
The second incident was in the Timberwalk townhomes just south of Loggers’ Run Middle School.
The readers tell us that at least four cars were broken into in the first incident and five in the second. Palm Beach County deputies were on-scene this morning speaking with our readers and others in the neighborhoods.
Crime mapping from the Sheriff shows seven burglary and car burglary incidents in Sandalfoot Cove in the past week, with another two nearby. The reports we received this morning were not included in that data yet.
Anyone with information on this incident should consider contacting Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers.
[email protected]
1-800-458-TIPS (8477)
West Boca Man Arrested for Fourth DUI?
Darren Hazzon (45) of Villa San Remo (Lyons south of Clint Moore) was arrested late last night on a DUI charge we don’t often see: “4th or Subsequent Offense.”
It takes a lot of work to pick up four or more DUIs. Mr. Hazzon may be on his way to that Hall of Shame.
We researched his record as best we could. Back in 2001 he was arrested for DUI causing injury in Palm Beach County. However that case resulted in a “wet reckless” with the DUI charge being dropped. That generally doesn’t count as a prior DUI offense.
We found three incidents in the Tampa area. The image below is from an unreliable website that posts arrest information.
We checked the official court records. They show DUI arrests in 2007 and 2010, but the 2011 incident does not appear to have been a real DUI arrest.
The 2007 case was resolved with a “no-contest” plea in 2008, with probation and a license suspension.
The 2010 case was resolved again with a no-contest plea. His license was supposedly suspended for five years.
The 2011 case (refusing to submit to a balance test) was dropped by prosecutors:
So far we only count two prior DUI convictions. It may be that Mr. Hazzon has other ones out there but we haven’t found them yet. What’s puzzling is how he was not charged with driving on a suspended license on the 2011 incident or this most recent incident.