Traders fear they will be too burnt out

Photo Axel Marchand-Lamothe
Claude El-Khoury, owner of a glasses store next door to the restaurant Ezo D had to again clean up the mess.

Axel Marchand-Lamothe

Friday, 26 January, 2018 19:50

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Friday, 26 January, 2018 19:50

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The merchants next door to a lebanese restaurant targeted by a series of arson attacks fear becoming the collateral victims of a war that does not concern them.

“I’m really scared, I don’t know what to do,” says Claude El-Khoury, owner of lunetterie Grand Optical.

His business shares a wall with the restaurant Ezo D, which has been the target of a third arson in just a few weeks. Still on Friday, it suffered heavy damage.

“I have lost all my customers today. The test equipment is in the water, ” she adds.

It will have to make a second claim with its insurer for the clean up.

A little further in the small complex that houses four businesses on the boulevard de L’acadie, opposite the central Market, David Pineda, manager assistant at Party Expert, remained calm in the face of events.

Photo Axel Marchand-Lamothe

Restaurant Ezo D

He feared the worst

“But if the restaurant was in full swing for real, it will all affect us,” he mentioned in the Journal. Only the smell of smoke made it all the way to the location occupied by the trade.

Like the 11 and 21 January, the incendiary smashed the front door of the restaurant in order to introduce a gas can inside of it to put out the fire.

Friday, they had even brought a tank of propane gas.

The POLICE has arrested two suspects who are minors in the last days.

The fires are the subject of an investigation. Other arrests are to be expected.

Ms. El-Khoury is concerned that the criminals still at large are trying to use the local neighbours to achieve their ends.

“Insurers should impose the installation of armored doors. I would do well, but it is very expensive, ” she suggests.

With the mounts in the shop and its equipment for the eye exams, a fire would be devastating to his business.

Contacted by The Newspaper, the children of the owner of the Ezo D, Elizabeth Daou, preferred not to comment on the situation, at the request of investigators.

“We don’t know who made this “, has indicated his son.

The restaurant had also been the victim of a series of attacks by arsonists in July 2010.