When a tobacco shop opened next door, a Melbourne couple’s dream cafe went up in smoke: ‘It felt like a warzone’

A vegan cafe in North Fitzroy is the latest victim of a spate of suspected firebombings of tobacconists

• Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast

For five months, Ashish Sharma and Manali Purohit scoured Facebook Marketplace for secondhand furniture, layered coats of paints on walls and installed plumbing to fit out their dream cafe.

“We put in basically all our life savings. We did a lot of it DIY,” says co-owner Sharma.

Continue reading...