‘When is it going to stop?‘: Locals’ anger as community caught in the crossfire of Perth’s tobacco war

Harshal Patel is fed up. His Ballajura pub, The Firkin, was shot at just over a month ago in an alleged illegal-tobacco related incident that police believe was meant for the next door convenience shop, The Candy Station.

This week the shop was set on fire again, allegedly in relation to the sale of illegal tobacco products. It’s the fourth time it’s been struck by arsonists in 12 months.

Firefighters managed to quickly put out the blaze that was started at 4am on Thursday morning but Patel believes next time they may not be so lucky.

“When’s it going to stop?” he said.

“The government, the police, everyone knows what’s happening [but] they’re not doing anything about it because it’s still open.

“You’ve got kids going in there buying vapes. It needs to go. It’s not good. It’s not good for the Ballajura community or its local residents, or the businesses that operate out of here.”

Patel said his business has seen a reduction in customers since it was shot at on December 5.

“You’ve got customers, regulars, who don’t want to come [because] you’ve got firebombs, shootings, why would they want to come?” he said.

“Because it happens so frequently now, you will see a hit to businesses, absolutely.”

The night before The Candy Station was targeted, a shop in Huntingdale was also set alight for a second time.

Patel wants the Ballajura store permanently shut down but currently in WA, that is not an option.

The power to penalise those that are selling illegal tobacco products currently lies with the Department of Health.

“It’s my view. Yes, I’d like to see their powers uplifted as the new Tobacco Control Act is formed, but until then, we are working with police every day to make sure that we are working together really effectively as we can within the legislation currently available,” WA Health director general Shirley Bowen said on Thursday in response to the fire.

She added that the process of penalising those selling illegal tobacco products was “a complex legal procedure”.

The Ballajurra incident has prompted further criticism from the opposition over the time its taken to empower WA Health and police.

“Excuses from this government. Wrong priorities, prioritising legislation in other areas. I want to be clear. We are talking about fire bombings at suburban shopping centres and suburban strip shopping areas,” opposition leader Basil Zempilas said.

“That is not good enough, the premier and his health ministers, the police minister, they need to introduce this legislation on the first day back of the new sitting year next month. To not do so will be unacceptable.“

Emergency Services Minister and former Police Minister Paul Papalia said while those laws were required, he placed much of the responsibility on the Border Force and federal police to prevent the products entering Australia in the first place.

“If you look around jurisdictions around the country, different responses have been implemented, and no one has eradicated this challenge,” he said.

“But what I would say is probably the most significant impact you can have on this trade and these types of events, is disrupting the importing of the illicit tobacco into the country.”

Papalia said the arrest of illicit tobacco kingpin Kazem Hamad in Iraq this week would hopefully make some headway in disrupting the influx of the trade.

Meanwhile, Ballajura local Neil McGuiness said it was “only a matter of time” before someone gets hurt.

“There’s children that walk across this car park, as I say, there’s two primary schools, there’s childcare centres, and there’s a there’s a high school just down the road, and you see all the kids walking across here, all the school bags in the morning,” he said.

“Well, the ultimate catastrophe would be someone coping a bullet, or, you know, be ing a victim of some overflow from an explosion. And nobody wants to see that.”

with 9 News Perth