Updated: Manassas business of the year Shining Sol Candle Company founder slapped with no-trespassing order

MANASSAS — Candlemakers aren’t welcome in the small four-space parking lot behind Shining Sol Candle Company.

Manassas police served the firm’s owner, Pete Evick, with a no-trespassing order this month that prohibits Evick from walking out of the back door of his shop at 9109 Center Street in Downtown Manassas onto the pavement behind the building. If he does, Evick could be prosecuted, according to the trespass order.

Before police issued the order, Evick and his candle shop employees would accept deliveries of pallets full of wax and glass containers which the company uses to make candles inside the shop.

The order is signed by Denise McCall, owner of a neighboring building and the small rear parking lot at 9409 Battle Street, the lot behind the candle shop on which she claims Evick trespassed. Shining Sol’s back door opens to this lot while McCall’s building on Battle Street houses a creative design studio bearing her name and three other retail shops.

Following the trespass order, Shining Sol employees are forced to accept deliveries more than 25 feet away from their back door and carry materials around the block on a public sidewalk on Battle Street to their shop’s front entrance on Center Street.

The trespass order comes after the city government earlier this year named Evick’s Shining Sol Candle Company as its business of the year for 2018.

According to emails from the city government obtained by Potomac Local through a Freedom of Information Act request, there are four spaces in the lot behind her building and the candle shop reserved for her tenants. McCall has issued several complaints against Evick and company via a string of emails to police, officials at city hall, and the mayor dating back to at least December, claiming McCall was bullied by the candlemakers who use the lot to unload materials, blocking spaces while preventing tenants from parking there.

According to an email from McCall sent on May 2, the date on which the police issued the trespass order, the candle shop employees disregarded her request not to use the lot:

“As a business trying to work, I directly asked Shining Sole Owners to move their materials off my tenant reserved spaces, and gave further notice that they trespassed again.  They said they do not do it very long. I reminded them they just loaded 1.5 hrs. or more on my private lot … They had about 12-14 inch sharp knife with a wood handle similar to a kitchen knife that they started to unpack their load with, and while angry were very haphazard with the knife and pointed it directly below my head at me several times as they yelled/bullied me and harassed me.”

Evick said he was using the knife to do his job, not to threaten McCall.

“I was using he knife to unwrap our pallet and she came from behind, screaming at me, and when I turned around to see who was behind me she was there and I was holding the knife,” said Evick.

An earlier email from McCall to Mayor Hal Parrish II penned in February notes the makes, models, and license plate numbers of vehicles that she states did not have permission to park in the spaces but parked there, anyway.

City police responded via email and noted they could not enforce towing on a privately owned property. Also in an email, McCall states she hit a brick wall with a towing company that refused to continue to come to her property to remove cars.

From an email written by McCall:

“It is a shame that my towing co…manager said they can not do anything either, as they dropped my location in the city last Thursday on the phone, and told me they are not going to help me with unauthorized vehicles parking on my lot.”

McCall in April won approval from the city to erect a four-foot tall fence on the parking lot behind her building that would further prevent anyone from trespassing. However, the fence will make it nearly impossible for the candle company to bring in large boxes into the store through their backdoor.

Evick fired back in an email, stating McCall has made it nearly impossible to conduct business at their current location.

Evick states in an email:

“The Restrictions you put on us today have basically stopped our ability to operate successfully. I refuse to make our 5 employees scale the side of the building to come to work with the fear of stepping in the wrong place may land them in court. You have stopped us from being able to disperse of trash in a simple professional [manner].  You have also basically made it so that should there be an emergency, I run the risk of going to jail by “running out” of my back door.”

Known for more than making candles, Evick also plays in a touring rock band with rockstar Brett Micheals, formerly of the band “Poison” and star of “Rock of Love,” which aired on VH1 from 2007 to 2009. Evick was with Micheals for a private performance Wednesday night in South Carolina.

Evick and Shining Sol Candle Company mate Deron Blevins have produced a series of videos posted to Facebook to express their displeasure with McCall; however, they do not name her in the videos. Those videos, in which Evick says he wishes to find a new location for his shop, have caught the attention of Shining Sol Fans who have rallied to the candlemaker’s defense.

Blevins on Wednesday said he does not believe the videos are being used to incite McCall.

“We’re to make the best of a bad situation,” he told Potomac Local.

In an email received late Wednesday night, McCall told Potomac Local she hopes “Shining Sol will seek to obtain the help they need from the City of Manassas in regard to their City public parking/unloading needs for their business.”