CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — The rash of explosions happening Monday night at Select Distributors in Clinton Township should not have been possible in the first place, township officials said.
In a press conference Tuesday, Township Supervisor Bob Cannon said the company was storing canisters of nitrous oxide that it was not permitted to keep there.
Watch the press conference below:
“Had we known the containers were in the backroom, we would have issued violations immediately and worked to get them out of there through the court systems,” Cannon said.
Select Distributors supplies products for liquor stores and gas stations, like cellphone chargers and vaping products.
The warehouse at 15 Mile Road and Groesbeck Highway was also home to another company called Goo.
Township Building Director Barry Miller called Goo “a storefront… with a backroom for storage of product that they sold on the floor.”
Goo sells what they call whipped cream chargers in heavy canisters — the same kind seen strewn around Clinton Township that exploded like shrapnel.
Watch: Dangerous debris falls on neighborhoods after industrial fire:
The cylinders of nitrous oxide contain a warning on back: “May cause or intensify fire” and “May explode if heated.”
Import records published online say Select Distributor’s president, Noor Kestou, was importing cylinders of nitrous oxide from China back in November.
Attempts to reach Kestou on his cellphone were unsuccessful.
“They had recently received a semi-load of the butane containers,” township fire chief Tim Duncan said. “They had over half of that still left. They also had the palates of the nitrous and then lighter fluid along with that.”
Because Select Distributors wasn’t approved to be storing the flammable containers that erupted Monday night, Cannon says the business will be held accountable.
“There are going to be repercussions," he said. “People have done things wrong, very wrong. And we don’t like it and we’re not going to accept it."
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.
