PORT ANGELES — Removal of fire-retardant cement-asbestos siding from the charred New Peking Restaurant and Lounge will begin today, paving the way for the landmark, dragon-decorated shell of a building to be demolished.

Built in the early 1940s as the Top Spot bar and dance hall, the 2416 E. U.S. Highway 101 establishment was destroyed by a spectacular, traffic-clogging July 5 blaze that authorities said was of unsuspicious origin.

It started as an electrical fire “somewhere in the attic,” Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict said this week, adding that owner Kevin Fong had insurance on the building.

Fong did not return several calls requesting comment this week, including Thursday, on when demolition will occur — or what, if anything, might take New Peking’s place.

New Peking was valued at $265,770 in 2009 for 2010 taxes, according to the county Assessor’s Office.

The 0.63 acres it sits on was valued at $203,490.

Today, more than four months after the nightspot was ravaged by fire, moon-suit-clad, respirator-breathing workers from KCB Environmental of Seabeck will begin tearing away the hazardous cement-asbestos siding from the building, KCB co-owner Jeanie Taylor said.

“We should be out of there, I’m hoping, by Thanksgiving Day,” she said.

That means what’s left of the sweeping, dramatic dragon murals painted by Port Townsend artist James Mayo 10 years ago — they grace the long eastern and western outer walls — may be completely dismembered and hauled away in a trailer for disposal.

Taylor said she did not know what, if any, parts of the dragon were painted on siding that will be removed by KCB.

Mayo could not be reached for comment.

The 7,800-square-foot New Peking is about a mile east of the city limit and passed by thousands of motorists a day traveling the main four-lane thoroughfare in and out of Port Angeles.

The county Department of Community Development, which posted a no-occupancy notice on the structure within days after the fire due to unsafe conditions and “looting and trespassing that is occurring,” also sent Fong the notice by certified letter, DCD Director and county Fire Marshall Sheila Roark Miller said.

“It has to be demolished because it’s beyond repair,” she said.

Miller and DCD staff have fielded about a dozen citizen complaints about the building’s condition and concerns about rancid food odors emanating from the structure, Miller said.

“I’d say that’s a pretty high number of complaints, probably mostly due to its visibility,” she said.

Concerns over the building’s impact on Port Angeles’ “public image” also were expressed around Sept. 17, when dignitaries arrived in Port Angeles for ceremonies surrounding the removal of the Elwha River dams, Miller said.

The Olympic Region Clean Air Agency, which issued the asbestos-removal permit, cannot issue a demolition permit until the asbestos siding is completely removed, ORCAA compliance supervisor Robert Moody said this week.

When Paul and Genevieve Fletcher built the Top Spot during World War II, it featured the “biggest dance floor west of Seattle,” their daughter-in-law, Joan Gill, told the Peninsula Daily News on July 6.

Helen Kullmann of Port Townsend and her husband, Dale, bought the business in 1971.

The Kullmanns sold it to Henry Yee, who named it Henry Yee’s Restaurant before the Fong family acquired it in 1985 and renamed it the New Peking.

The fire that destroyed the restaurant and lounge took three fire departments four hours to extinguish and blocked all four lanes of U.S. Highway 101 until 8:40 a.m. that morning.

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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.