By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A TERRIFIED neighbour’s pleas for Pancake Parlour’s Dandenong restaurant to close off its car park to after-hours drunks, drug dealers, hoons and arsonists have fallen flat for years.
Maria Papasavvas’s bordering fence has been set alight three times by the car park’s after-midnight visitors, and troubles are escalating, she says.
The most recent fire started from an incinerated stolen car late at night two months ago.
The blaze spread into her backyard and destroyed her chicken coop, chickens and vegie patch before being extinguished by fire crews. Ms Papasavvas remembers waking to the fierce blaze and running naked into her backyard yelling for help.
“Everything was on fire and the fire brigade was hosing it down. My vegie patch was black, my three chickens were dead.
“What if no-one’s at home and the fire spreads to my garage and then my house?”
Often she is kept up at night by sounds of drunkenness, shattered glass and squealing tyres in the car park’s darkest secluded corner, metres from her home.
Her eldest son, who resides in the backyard bungalow, sometimes sleeps inside the main house out of fear.
“My family is in danger,” Ms Papasavvas said. “It’s been going for years and getting worse.”
Police often increase patrols after incidents but Ms Papasavvas says the most effective solution would be a gate to close the car park after hours.
She has unsuccessfully asked Pancake Parlour for years. “Why is it so hard?” she said.
Inspector Bruce Kitchen, of Greater Dandenong police, said he would recommend a gate and perimeter fence that sealed off the site.
“That’s what I’d do if it was my business,” he said. “But it’s a massive cost to the proprietor.”
He said police could do a security audit of the site and liaise between Ms Papasavvas and restaurant management.
Serge Meiers, senior manager of the Pancake Parlour, said he had been advised by police several years ago not to gate off the car park after hours because it would hinder drive-through police patrols.
He said he’d be reluctant to fence off the property because it would look forbidding but was willing to talk further with police.
CCTV cameras and improved lighting had recently been installed, he said.
“Why would we want these problems here? It’s of no benefit to us.”
