Another two hospitality venues were targeted by firebombers overnight in an escalation in the city\u2019s \u2018pub wars\u2019. <\/p>\n
The George Hotel in South Melbourne and Almina, a Lebanese restaurant in Docklands, were hit by arsonists in the early hours of Saturday. <\/p>\n
Broken glass and an abandoned jerry can could be seen outside Almina early Saturday as police stood guard. <\/p>\n
Three males were arrested over the fire, which was set around 3.30am, police said.<\/p>\n
The alleged offenders were apprehended after encountering uniformed police officers while attempting to flee in a stolen vehicle.<\/p>\n
They attempted to escape on foot but were soon located and arrested.<\/p>\n
Two were found hiding under the Bolte Bridge in Ron Barassi Snr Park and the other was in a vehicle on Docklands Drive that also allegedly contained jerry cans.<\/p>\n
A 19-year-old Collingwood man, a 22-year-old Fitzroy North man and a 16-year-old boy will be interviewed by investigators today.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile the entrance of The George Hotel was marked with heavy black scorching and debris believed to be remnants of a molotov cocktail on Saturday morning. <\/p>\n
The two overnight attacks come as The Emerson in South Yarra appears to have taken the drastic measure of parking a 40ft truck trailer on the street out the front of the venue to block the facade from passing cars.<\/p>\n
It was recently the target of a drive-by shooting with several shots fired at the pub in the early hours of April 26.<\/p>\n
It was also the target of arsonists on two other occasions: once in February and again in April.<\/p>\n
There have been more than 20 attacks or attempted attacks on Melbourne night-life venues since February.<\/p>\n
Police are probing whether bikies, Middle Eastern organised crime syndicates or an illegal booze operation are behind the \u201cextremely concerning\u201d campaign of firebombings, shootings and kidnappings targeting the city\u2019s night-time hotspots.<\/p>\n
Operation Eclipse was established this week to establish the key players and motives behind the brazen attacks. <\/p>\n
The Emerson, The Albion Hotel, Soho Restaurant and Bar and Bar Bambi are among the venues targeted in recent weeks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another two hospitality venues were targeted by firebombers overnight in an escalation in the city\u2019s \u2018pub wars\u2019. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,133,384,4310,4312,4308,4307,4305,4309,4306,4041,260,4304,120,4311,381,68],"class_list":["post-3114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-crime-syndicates","tag-docklands","tag-escalating-nightlife-wars","tag-firebombers-overnight","tag-george-hotel","tag-hospitality-hotspots","tag-hospitality-venues","tag-illegal-booze-operation","tag-jennifer-pittorino","tag-melbourne","tag-molotov-cocktail","tag-oceania","tag-pub-wars","tag-south-melbourne","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}