Emergency crews rush to blaze at Point Cook tobacco store

A Point Cook store is the latest tobacco shop to go up in flames as police probe a string of firebombing attacks across the city.

The scene of a blaze at Tommi’s Gifts and Smoking Accessories tobacco store in Point Cook. Picture: Ian Currie

Victoria Police is investigating whether a tobacco store fire in Point Cook on Friday has links with a blaze at an ice cream joint in Williamstown earlier this month.

Emergency crews were called to the Tommi’s Gift and Smoking Accessories shop on Murnong St just before 6am to find the window smashed and a fire burning.

Smashed glass and a discarded jerry can were left outside the shopfront on Friday as police cordoned off the area.

“It is understood the fire was extinguished quickly, with the business sustaining minor damage,” a Victoria Police spokesman said.

“Police are treating the fire as suspicious.”

Police outside Tommi’s Gifts and Smoking Accessories tobacco store in Murnong St, Point Cook. Picture: Ian Currie

Neighbouring shops within the Stockland Point Cook Shopping Centre were lucky to evade damage as the fire was brought under control.

“They could have really done some damage in a shopping centre like that,” one tobacco industry source said.

The Herald Sun can reveal detectives are examining any possible links between Friday’s blaze and the Capriccio ice cream shop fire which was torched in the early hours of January 5.

Company records show Ezzat Haddara, a prominent business figure in the western suburbs, runs Williamstown’s Capriccio store.

Those records show Tommi’s smoke shop is also operated by Ezzat Haddara.

The ice creamery was rammed into and firebombed about 3.45am, setting the shop and the apartment above on fire before the assailants fled in a Toyota Yaris.

Police tape at the entrance to the store on Friday morning. Picture: Ian Currie

Just a couple of months earlier, the nearby Williamstown Ice Creamery and Frozen Yoghurt store was hit two nights in a row.

Those attacks formed part of the tobacco warfare resurgence, which endured a brief lull of activity before the heat was really turned up on one crime figure’s businesses across town.

Many of the shops and restaurants at the centre of Taskforce Lunar investigations have been targeted twice – especially if the crooks failed to burn it properly after their first visit.

Among those to have been targeted twice or more by ruthless opposers are smoke shops in Altona, Oakleigh, Werribee, Moonee Ponds, Deer Park, Hadfield and Bentleigh.

A jerry can outside the Point Cook business. Picture: Ian Currie

The Docklands restaurant owned by major western suburbs crime figure Fadi Haddara was also targeted by rivals twice in just three days.

Friday’s attack in Point Cook is the latest shop to be targeted as the illicit tobacco war continues to rage.

Lunar detectives are now investigating more than 30 firebombings, which includes smoke shops, restaurants, gyms and ice cream stores.

Police on Wednesday arrested a sixth man wanted over a spate of firebombings since Christmas Day, continuing to put the squeeze on crooks who bring this violence to suburban streets.