{"id":3179,"date":"2026-05-02T03:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T03:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/3179\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T03:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T03:23:10","slug":"man-and-two-teenagers-arrested-after-melbourne-restaurant-targeted-in-alleged-arson-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/3179\/","title":{"rendered":"Man and two teenagers arrested after Melbourne restaurant targeted in alleged arson attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man and two teenagers have been arrested after a Melbourne eatery was targeted in an alleged arson attack.<\/p>\n<p>The trio allegedly smashed the glass doors of Lebanese restaurant Almina in Docklands and entered the venue about 3.30am on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Accelerant was then allegedly poured inside before the eatery was set alight, Victoria Police said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The restaurant sustained minor damage before the blaze was extinguished.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe offenders fled south on Docklands Drive where they attempted to get into a stolen vehicle, before being disturbed by uniform officers who were patrolling the area,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n<p>Police said the alleged offenders ran from the scene, before officers found two males allegedly hiding under the Bolte Bridge at Ron Barassi Snr Park.<\/p>\n<p>The pair were arrested.<\/p>\n<p>Another male was arrested after being found in a car on Docklands Drive.<\/p>\n<p>Officers allegedly discovered jerry cans inside the vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators are set to talk with a 16-year-old Glen Eira area boy, along with a 19-year-old Collingwood man and a 22-year-old Fitzroy North man.<\/p>\n<p>The incident is being investigated by Melbourne Crime Investigation Unit detectives.<\/p>\n<p>A witness told <a class=\"body-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldsun.com.au\/news\/victoria\/citys-pub-wars-escalate-as-two-more-venues-are-firebombed-overnight\/news-story\/e6e8c9904bf2bbcd11dffd033ff21dc6\" data-tgev=\"event119\" data-tgev-container=\"bodylink\" data-tgev-order=\"e6e8c9904bf2bbcd11dffd033ff21dc6\" data-tgev-label=\"news\" data-tgev-metric=\"ev\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Herald Sun<\/a> he heard \u201cloud smashing\u201d before noticing two people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey had a jerry can, one went inside, and the other one started pouring petrol on the outside,\u201d Charlie Williams said.<\/p>\n<p>Police are also investigating an incident where a Molotov cocktail was allegedly hurled at a venue on Cecil Street in South Melbourne about 2.20am on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>First responders rushed to the scene and a small fire was extinguished.<\/p>\n<p>The blaze caused minimal damage, a police spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>No one had been inside the premises at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Police said the alleged offenders fled before officers arrived and were not found during a search of the area.<\/p>\n<p>A crime scene was set up and investigations are continuing.<\/p>\n<p>Police have urged any witnesses of the incident or anyone with relevant footage to come forward by contacting Crime Stoppers via 1800 333 000 or www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.<\/p>\n<p>Both incidents would be reviewed by detectives from Operation Eclipse \u2013 an operation set up in April in response to recent incidents targeting Melbourne hospitality venues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man and two teenagers have been arrested after a Melbourne eatery was targeted in an alleged arson&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2034,312,260,1047,1695],"class_list":{"0":"post-3179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-melbourne","8":"tag-arson","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-melbourne","11":"tag-police","12":"tag-restaurant"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179","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=3179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}