May you live in interesting places

There are many jokes about an alleged Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."  Today I wondered if someone had slightly adapted that for us as per the Title of this post.

We hit St Kilda Rd about 0645am this morning heading for Mallacoota so turned into Commercial Rd, expecting to have the usual uneventful drive to Burke Rd and thence the M1 Eastbound.  Here is the planned route.

Note the arrow from the label 'Point A', just past Punt Rd.  As we got here we got a notification from Google Maps that "Police reported ahead" and indeed we could see flashing blue and red lights a bit further down the road.  As we got closer we could see several sets of flashing lights and indeed Commercial Rd was closed off by Plods at Porter St.  

We took ourselves on a diversion down Porter St and Grosvenor St to Chapel St, where there were more Plods and more flashing blue lights visible at the junction with Commercial Rd.  Deary, dearie me what has been going on?  We could turn left into Malvern Rd  - which had a lot of water on it (que?) - so didn't care but were curious.

We did our usual swap of positions in the car at Rosedale so once in the passenger seat I hauled out the iPhone (which was doing satnav duty) and consulted the Age.  To save you reading about other mischief in the CBD here is the relevant stuff for my story.

"Police are now probing another firebombing of a licensed venue in the early hours of Sunday, after Bar Up <originally reported as Blue Bar, see below> on Chapel Street, South Yarra, was set on fire just before 5am. <note we got there just on 7am.>

"Emergency services received reports that a male offender started the blaze before fleeing on foot, causing “significant damage” to the building, according to a spokeswoman for Victoria Police.

"The venue was closed when the blaze took hold.

"A man was treated for smoke inhalation after unsuccessfully trying to extinguish the fire.

"The offender was not located following patrols of the area, and is still on the run.

"Nearby on Commercial Road in South Yarra, popular bar and club The Emerson was targeted in a drive-by shooting just before 2am on Sunday.

"A vehicle allegedly pulled up outside the venue before several shots were fired towards the bar. No one was injured and the offenders drove away from the scene.

"A small stretch of Commercial Road between Porter and Izett streets remains closed to traffic on Sunday morning."

Checking on Google Earth it seems that Blue Bar is 330 Chapel St and Bar Up is 332  Chapel St (so they are next door to each other).  Looking at basic Google, both places look like joints I would be unlikely to visit: Bar Up in particular appears to have laid a very dubious trail on Trip Adviser!  I think The Emerson has applied to extend their noisy music time to 1am: I am unsure whether the shooting is related to that or whether this event will affect the application.