- A 57-year-old woman was arrested Wednesday after crashing into The Pad gaming store early Wednesday morning. Police say she was arrested for first offense OWI.
- Business owner Schyler Garza had been moving things out of the building and into his new business location in Appleton. He said the majority of the store materials were not there when the crash happened.
- Garza said "it was good to hear" that the driver of the vehicle was OK.
"I opened this store up when I was 18-19 years old, and I really wanted a game store here," said business owner Schyler Garza. "This building will always be a memory in a sense."
The Pad gaming store in New London holds a special meaning for Garza.
It's now seen empty with a gaping hole in the middle. That's after a driver lost control of a vehicle and crashed into the building just before 1:15 a.m. Wednesday.
"(We sell) a lot of expensive stuff, a lot of high-end stuff," Garza said. "We just moved those over to our other store. That was like high-priority on what we wanted to do right away."
His other location being in Appleton. With his full move there starting last year.
Garza said he's relieved most of the store materials had already been moved prior to the crash.
Video shows the crash still causing great damage to what's left. Some games were still protected under debris.
New London Police said the driver was a 57-year-old woman. She was traveling south on Pearl Street when the car crashed into the building.
She was later arrested for first offense OWI.
"It's good to hear that, you know, she wasn't like fatally hurt or anything like that," Garza said. "And I mean her life's worth way more than a couple $1,000 and product that might have got damaged and some windows that can be fixed."
Garza said his business has been off to a good start in Appleton.
With the majority of the store's material already at the Appleton location, Garza said if this were to happen a year ago, prior to the big move, he would've been close to being out of business.
