00:00 Well, you can see behind me at the moment at this restaurant in Glenty Place in Docklands,
00:06 the front of the windows here have been smashed.
00:09 There is crime scene tape around here because police are still investigating this.
00:14 And we are understanding that there's going to be an arson chemist here as well.
00:18 So this attack actually happened at about 10 to 3 this morning.
00:22 Police say that there was a trio of offenders.
00:25 They smashed this window here behind me before using some sort of accelerant to set it alight.
00:31 The trio then ran off and got into a nearby car.
00:35 And police are hoping to hear from anybody that might have seen or heard any suspicious
00:41 activity around here to try to work out exactly what happened here.
00:45 Obviously, they're going to have arson chemists here today to try to work out what sort of
00:50 accelerant might have been used as well.
00:53 Stephanie, what are police saying?
00:56 Well, police are trying to work out whether or not this is actually linked to a spate
01:01 of attacks.
01:02 There's been a bit of a tobacco turf war on some of the tobacco convenience stores and
01:07 premises.
01:08 We saw one that was just earlier in the week, and that was in Melbourne's inner north.
01:14 And then that was attacking a convenience store.
01:17 We've also seen in the past other restaurants that have actually had arson attacks, also
01:23 in Docklands here.
01:24 So we saw one that was at a nearby restaurant.
01:28 The first attack actually forced the evacuation of the restaurant with 60 patrons having to
01:33 leave.
01:34 And then after that, a second arson attack actually destroyed that restaurant.
01:38 So there have been a spate of these attacks that have happened in Melbourne.
01:42 Obviously, Melbourne is very keen to be looking at exactly what is happening.
01:46 I know that they recently also had some raids as part of their Viper task force to look
01:51 at some of the illegal tobacco that might be being traded around the Melbourne area.
01:58 And so this is something that they're trying to work out whether or not this is yet another
02:03 link to some of these recent arson attacks.
02:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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