Firefighters check air conditioning units on the roof of Guitar Center, on the west side of Manor Shopping Center, Saturday.
A firefighter uses a mallet to strike a K-tool to break the lock at 1292B Millersville Pike. Firefighters needed to gain entry to the building in an attempt to find the source of the smoke in the adjacent Guitar Center store.
Wafting smoke and a power failure disrupted business Saturday afternoon and brought firefighters racing to the Manor Shopping Center on Millersville Pike.
Firefighters checked the roof of the Guitar Center, on the west side of the center, after smoke was reported inside.
No fire was found but the guitar store had to be ventilated.
The smoke and blackout were caused by a Guitar Center air conditioner that malfunctioned because of a power surge, Ron Comfort Jr., chief of the Lancaster Township Fire Department, said.
The lights went out briefly shortly before 5 p.m. and then flickered on before dying again. Power to the center was knocked out for a total of 15 or 20 minutes and was restored shortly after 6 p.m., Comfort said.
"The firefighters were battling the heat," as well as the power problems, the chief added.
Michelle Lohmann, a saleswoman at Advance Auto Parts, said "the firefighters were coming down here to get cooled off" from the blistering temperatures of the parking lot.
CVS store shift supervisor Ryan Haney said he and his employees tallied sales by hand during the outage and joked that it was "back to the [1940s]."
The Regal Manor 16 movie theater and Ruby Tuesday temporarily posted signs saying they were closed.
By 7:30 p.m., Comfort said, every business but the Guitar Center had reopened.
Firefighters from Rohrerstown, West Lancaster, Millersville, Willow Street and Moutville also responded.