Couple’s tax fix plea as tobacco fire guts cafe dream

Eleanor Wilson | October 17, 2026

Newlywed cafe owners Manali Purohit and Ashish Sharma recall well the day a new neighbour moved in with ambitions to open a grocery store.

“We thought, ‘Oh, that’s fantastic, that would synergise very well with our business’,” Mr Sharma tells AAP.

Ms Purohit, a Mumbai-raised pastry chef, and her husband had only recently acted on their dream to open their vegan eatery, And Bodega, on St Georges Road in Melbourne’s Fitzroy North. 

But it wasn’t long before the presence of their next-door tenants began to stir unease among tight-knit locals.

“We knew pretty early on it may not be a grocery store, it may be like something like a tobacco store,” Mr Sharma explains.

“My wife was already a little anxious … there was a little bit of inevitability.”

Customers also expressed concern to them about the possibility arsonists could target the neighbourhood as they had in relation to over 150 other tobacconist stores across Victoria since March 2023.

Then in late-September, as she arrived for an early morning baking shift, the glint of exposed glass jutting from the shop’s front window caught Ms Purohit’s eye.

Plastered to the wall was a handwritten note, according to another witness spoken to by AAP.

They attributed it to a group now synonymous with the city’s tobacco wars: The Commission.

The glass was again smashed last Thursday, with CCTV allegedly capturing a car driving past the tobacconist, before bricks were hurtled into the shopfront.

By Monday, early morning Triple Zero calls from terrified locals reported hearing explosions about 3.45am.

The damage destroyed the tobacconist, devastated And Bodega and another cafe, and left Mr Sharma and Ms Purohit with “what looked like a bomb site” where their plant-based cafe once thrived.

“There were these little canisters strewn all across our premise … the severity and the ferociousness of these things … it’s terrorism,” Mr Sharma says.

Investigators believe at least one offender forced entry to the tobacconist and set it alight but no arrests have been made.

There’s nothing to suggest the targeted business was selling illicit tobacco, police say.

The attack is one in a spate that has gripped Melbourne in the past two weeks, as authorities struggle to curb a years-long scourge of tobacco store fires.

Facing a damage bill of well over $100,000, Mr Sharma has joined a growing chorus of industry experts and economists calling for Australia’s tobacco excise to be cut in a bid to reduce demand for cheap illegal cigarettes. 

“Why let a black market, why let these type of actors form any sort of foothold in our society?” he asks.

“It’s real stubbornness from politicians … somebody needs to just make the easy call and be like we’re just abolishing this tax and we’re not letting any new tobacco stores open.”

Around 80 per cent of all tobacco consumed in 2025 was illegal, up from 12 per cent in 2017, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates. 

At the same time, the tobacco excise has more than tripled.

The federal government continues to prioritise a law enforcement approach to choking the illicit trade.

Yet it has stubbornly resisted demands to slash the excise, which generated $7.4 billion in 2024-25.

“We cannot overstate the emphasis on shutting down retail premises that are blatantly selling illegal products in high streets,” Assistant Customs Minister Julian Hill recently told AAP.

Contrastingly, the coalition has vowed to slash the tobacco excise by 80 per cent if elected, dropping the average price of cigarettes from $40-$50 to roughly $16-$26.

One Nation wants to slash the tax by 75 per cent and freeze indexation for five years.

Reducing the excise is the only credible way for to smoke out Australia’s $8.5 billion nicotine black market, says Deakin University criminologist James Martin.

“By relying on these reactive solutions, none of this is addressing the fundamental problem and that is strong persistent demand for affordable and appealing types of nicotine,” Dr Martin says.

“As long as that demand (for affordable nicotine) is there, there will be criminal suppliers who will be prepared to capitalise and take the risks to supply that demand.

However, University of Sydney public health professor Becky Freeman says shrinking the excise risks creating a “race to the bottom with criminals”, while also risking a spike in smoking rates.

“I don’t think people understand just how cheap illicit tobacco can go,” she says.

The cost of manufacturing packs of cigarettes in parts of Southeast Asia to be imported into Australia can be as low as one Australian dollar, Prof Beckman estimates.

Earlier this month, Victorian police announced the closure of 61 stores with alleged links to organised crime caught selling illicit tobacco, alongside major cigarette, vape tobacco and cash seizures.

However, Prof Freeman argues the state government has taken too long to act.

“If this was really a priority, it’s something that should have been done ages ago,” she says.

Queensland launched initial tobacco and vape shutdown orders in September 2024 and was followed quickly by South Australia.

Retailers raised concerns that illicit tobacco-linked arson attacks could spread to legitimate businesses during a Victorian inquiry into tobacco and vaping controls more than two years ago.

The probe also found state and local governments were not taking enforcement action against illicit sales due to a lack of resources, safety concerns and legislative deficiencies.

Small and medium businesses were at increased risk of violence due to the illicit tobacco trade, the inquiry’s final report found in August 2024.

“It’s sadly not surprising Victoria is having all these problems because they’ve been so slow to enact enforcement,” Prof Freeman says.

The Victorian government has not responded to AAP’s request for comment.