Vacant Stockton apartment building burns, sparking frustration from nearby business owner

A three-alarm fire ripped through a Stockton apartment building Friday morning, threatening neighboring businesses as firefighters worked to control the blaze. 

Firefighters worked fast to protect a neighboring warehouse filled with paper products, bringing it under control in just 25 minutes.

But one business owner says that fires and safety concerns in the area are nothing new. 

David Lee owns Tarps & Tie-Downs, just feet from the Waldomore Apartments on East Market Street.

He said his employee discovered smoke at roughly 7:00 a.m. as a fire swept through the empty apartment building next door.  

"My employee who work right over here, she tried to open the side door over there," Lee explained. "You know, then smoke come in."

The cause of the fire is still unknown. But Lee says small fires and other disturbances near his business are becoming increasingly more common.

Lee showed CBS News Sacramento's Nina Burns a strip of railroad property behind his building, where he says homeless encampments have become a recurring problem.

"And some, sometimes, they have a tent over there, and I see the fire, and they, our wall over there, is get burned," Lee said. 

Lee says he's repeatedly asked the railroad to clean up the area and even approached the city about installing a fence.

He says those efforts went nowhere — leaving him to cut back brush and clean up trash himself. After Friday's fire, he says he's still waiting for a solution.

"I call many times complain, but nobody take care. Then we just have to paint one time, you know, but it happens again," Lee said. "So we, we quit, you know, to paint."