Early on Monday 4 May, police were dealing with two suspicious incidents at hospitality businesses about an hour apart, on opposite sides of Melbourne. In both, according to the ABC, a car was driven into the front of the building.
Tullamarine, about 4.30am
Fire crews called to a kebab shop in Tullamarine found that a car had been driven through the front of the shop and a fire started inside. The offenders had fled. Police set up a crime scene.
Prahran, about 5.40am
At the Electric Bar in Prahran, police said offenders rammed the bar's entrance with a white Mercedes and doused the venue with petrol. Two jerry cans were seen on the stairs. Police believed the offenders may have been disturbed, and they left. The owners described it as an attempted arson attack and said there was no major damage. No staff were inside and nobody was hurt.
The ABC reported that Operation Eclipse detectives would look at whether either incident was linked to the series of attacks on licensed venues in inner Melbourne. Police said five people arrested about an hour earlier, a block from the bar, were not being treated as linked at that stage.
The pattern continued
It didn't stop in May. In August, AAP reported that a stolen Toyota Prado had crashed into a shop on Leeds Street in Footscray in the early hours, where an attempt to set the shop alight failed and the Prado was left in the middle of the street. The same report said a tobacco store in Northcote had been ram-raided overnight for the second time in two days.
Why the vehicle comes first
From the outside, these attacks look like arson. The car is the part that makes the arson work. Restaurants, bars and takeaway shops generally have glass frontages and doors designed to welcome people in, not keep them out. After hours they're locked, but a lock on a glass door is not much of an obstacle to a two-tonne car.
Driving a vehicle into the entrance does three things for an offender in a few seconds. It opens the building. It creates a large hole that fuel or an incendiary can be thrown through. And it gives them a quick exit, sometimes in a second vehicle, sometimes leaving the rammed one behind.
It's worth being clear that bollards do nothing about the underlying reasons a venue is targeted, whatever they are. They won't stop someone on foot breaking a window and throwing something through it. Police investigation and the wider response to extortion and organised crime are what deal with that.
Where a physical barrier fits
What a barrier can do is take away the vehicle as the fast way in. With steel bollards set in front of an entrance, a car can't reach the door. An attacker is left trying to break through on foot, which is slower, noisier, more likely to be disturbed, and more likely to be caught on camera.
For hospitality venues, the practical constraints are real:
- Footpath dining. Many venues have outdoor seating in front of the entrance. Bollards placed at the kerb side of the dining area protect customers from traffic as well as the building from attack.
- Council land. The footpath outside most venues belongs to the council. Bollards there need council approval. Private setbacks and forecourts are usually the owner's or landlord's call.
- Deliveries and bins. Removable bollards can be lifted out for deliveries and locked back in at close, so they don't get in the way of the working day.
- Access. Spacing has to leave clear paths for wheelchairs and prams.
A note on how these stories are reported
We haven't seen these premises, and we don't know who was behind any of these attacks or why. Police have not said whether any of them are connected. This piece is about the method, not the motive: a vehicle used to open a building that was never designed to resist one.
For owners of venues on busy strips, the question to ask is a simple one. If a car pulled up outside at 4am and reversed at the door, what would it hit first?