A Melbourne printer was the target of a failed arson attack when a hooded firebug doused a pallet of magazines with petrol and set it alight, but it failed to set the building ablaze.
Plakkit director Andrew McGregor says a rival printer could be to blame as business was going ‘too good’, and Moreland police say the attack looks to be ‘one-off and possibly targeted’.
The arsonist was caught on security camera nosing around outside the Brunswick facility of poster and flyer printer Plakkit before making a clumsy attempt to damage the building by setting the stock ablaze.
The footage shows the culprit making several bungled attempts to start the fire before eventually setting a magazine alight and throwing it onto the pallet.
However neighbours managed to keep the fire at bay until firefighters arrived to extinguish it, limiting the damage to the pallet and the stack of magazines and flyers on it, at a cost of $10,000 to the business.
McGregor called the act ‘gutless and silly’, saying the damage could have been a lot worse if the fire had spread to a nearby van with a full tank of petrol.
“It’s essentially a residential area, which is where it becomes brazen, silly, stupid, dangerous,” he told the local Moreland Leader.
“If someone wanted to communicate a message, they should have left a note.”
McGregor says he will install more security cameras and roller door to beef up security for his eight-year-old business, which prints A0, A2, and A3 posters and flyers for the Melbourne arts and entertainment community and distributes them to more than 200 bars, venues, stores, cafes and retail outlets across the city.
Street flyer printing is a notorious rough and tumble world, although most of the usual kerfuffle is on the street itself, an attempted firebombing is relatively rare.
Plakkit also designs manage and executes ‘guerrilla ambush marketing campaigns', including sticker runs, footpath stencils, coaster distribution, and direct distribution.
Clients include several major event and entertainment companies, and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
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