Barber Dennis Manning reached out to a colleague last month after he was forced out of the shop he ran in Columbia Heights for 22 years.

Manning and Paul Vandeveer, who owns Pauly Ray’s Sports Barbershop in Shoreview, have known each other for about eight years. Vandeveer had rented a chair at Manning’s now-shuttered Sportsmen’s Barbers for four years before opening his own shop in 2017.

Last week, Manning took Vandeveer up on his offer to rent a chair at Pauly Ray’s. Vandeveer went so far as to let Manning set up a few of his arcade games and put his old sign from Sportsmen’s outside the shop.

Now, both are without a barbershop after Manning — on the second day on the job at Pauly Ray’s — intentionally set a fire inside the shop, which is now gutted and closed, criminal charges against the 55-year-old say.

Manning, of Columbia Heights, is charged in Ramsey County District Court with first- and second-degree arson in connection with the Nov. 29 fire.

Manning was arrested at the scene of the fire and went before a judge on Friday. He was released from jail after posting a $20,000 bond.

Manning could not be reached for comment Wednesday, and a call to his attorney was not immediately returned.

Vandeveer told investigators he believes Manning started the blaze as a way to get him to open a new location with him elsewhere.

“He did it right on camera,” Vandeveer, 40, of Hugo, said Wednesday in a phone interview. “I don’t know what he was thinking, if he didn’t know the camera was there or what. If it wasn’t there, we’d have an even bigger mess. It’s so insane.”

Former customers raised funds

Last month, customers set up a GoFundMe page for Manning after word spread that he would be displaced because the owner of the building that housed Sportsmen’s Barbers had other plans. Manning had been given a 45-day notice to vacate the building off 40th Avenue, just west of Central Avenue.

Dennis Manning outside Sportsmen’s Barbers, his now-shuttered Columbia Heights business. (Courtesy of GoFundMe)

“This setback not only affects him but also has a profound impact on our community,” the fundraising page says. “Dennis has been a source of inspiration and hope for so many, and we can’t let his life’s work be extinguished.”

Supporters donated just over $8,400 of a $75,000 goal for Manning to rebuild his shop in another spot. Manning thanked them in a Nov. 11 update, adding he has survived cancer, the pandemic and that “with your continued support we can keep Sportsmen’s Barbers alive.”

Manning wrote that he found a new location off Central and 44th avenues in Columbia Heights “that I really want to use to fulfill my dreams.”

Sparked a red lighter

Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies and firefighters were sent to Vandeveer’s barbershop just before 7 p.m. Nov. 29 on a report of a fire inside the closed business. A pizza shop and a chiropractor office are on either side of the barbershop in Shoreview Village Mall, off Highway 96, just east of Lexington Avenue.

Firefighters forced their way into the barbershop, which was fully engulfed in smoke. The shop’s floors were flooded with water from the sprinkler system.

Firefighters determined the fire started in the northeast part of the shop near a video game area.

According to the criminal complaint, surveillance video showed Manning inside the barbershop just before 6:30 p.m. He pulled a lighter from his pocket. He bent down and sparked the lighter, igniting a cloth on top of an arcade console, the complaint says.

Manning turned around and walked to an exit, looking behind him as he left the shop. The fire burned continuously and accelerated in intensity, with embers from the lit cloth falling onto chairs underneath the arcade console and igniting them as well.

Heavy smoke obscured the video until the sprinkler system extinguished the fire after 20 minutes. Surveillance video then showed that mall patrons had congregated at the barbershop doors leading into the mall. Several tried to open the doors to extinguish the fire, but they were locked.

Patrons made calls on their cellphones. Just before 8 p.m., a sheriff’s deputy saw Manning standing in a doorway and on his phone, either recording the scene or speaking to someone on FaceTime.

Manning was arrested, and denied starting the fire. He had a red lighter on him. While in the back of a squad car, he said that he didn’t have a lighter and didn’t start anything on fire. He then said, “How would a lighter start them games on fire?” the complaint says. “Doesn’t make sense. Those are my games.”

Dennis Ambrose Manning (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Manning later said, “There’s no footage of me having a lighter to start anything on fire. It’s ludicrous.” He then changed his story and said, “Oh, you know what? I did take the lighter and lit a string on a cloth that was hanging on the game. That was it. I did not start the fire. And it fell on the chair. I did not start the fire.”

Manning agreed to speak to an investigator. He said Vandeveer left the shop about 5 minutes before he did. Manning denied intentionally setting the fire, claiming he saw a string hanging down from the tablecloth by the arcade games and took out a lighter to burn it. He said he thought he patted the cloth down after burning the string to prevent a fire from starting, the complaint says.

Manning said he had no reason to burn down the barbershop and noted how he and Vandeveer had items worth thousands of dollars inside. When asked why he didn’t grab one of the several scissors available inside the barbershop to cut the string, Manning said he was exhausted and just wanted to remove the string quickly, so he used his lighter, the complaint says.

Manning said that he and Vandeveer planned to move the barbershop to a spot in Columbia Heights off Central Avenue.

Meanwhile, Vandeveer told deputies that he has known Manning for eight years and that he used to work at his barbershop in Columbia Heights. He said Manning agreed to rent a chair from him and that he started at the shop the day before.

He said Manning had been repeatedly asking him about opening a barbershop in Columbia Heights with him. He said he had no intention of closing his shop and moving, and that he believes Manning set the fire to close the business so he would join him at the new spot, the complaint says.

‘Hard to trust people now’

Vandeveer said Wednesday that crews will demo the damaged floor, walls and ceiling on Thursday, and the hope is to open back up in two weeks.

“I’m tying to get going as quick as possible,” he said.

He said he’s feeling hurt over what happened.

“It’s hard to trust people now,” he said. “I thought, after that many years, he was a solid guy — and that he’d bring me some new business.”

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