Hotel / Restaurant, Restaurant

Montreal, QC, Canada – Arson fire at pizzeria extinguished by sprinkler system

When eating out at a pizzeria in Montreal you can typically expect certain things to happen. First, you get your giant pizza pie and sit down at a diner-like table. Then, you can totally expect to get some of the sauce on at least one article of clothing.

Third, a Molotov cocktail hurls through the window and sets the restaurant on fire.

That last point may seem bizarre, but it’s exactly what’s been happening in pizza shops in the city. 

Around 3:30AM this morning one of the bombs was thrownthrough a window at California Pizza, in the Côte des Neiges neighbourhood. Firefighters arrived to find the flames dying out, thanks to the sprinkler system in the restaurant.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, unfortunately. In fact, over the past two weeks three known fires have been started by an arsonist in the city, according to CTV. They remain on the loose, so who knows what pizza shop they’ll be targeting next.

Thankfully, however, no one has been injured.

Not-so-surprisingly, Montreal actually has a bit of a problem with people setting things on fire. Just so you get an idea of how bad it is, below is a visual aid of firebombings in the city since 2009.

So, needless to say, we have a lot of arsonists running around the city. Montreal’s arson squad will be meeting with California Pizza today to examine security footage and attempt to identify who keeps setting pizzerias on fire.

So far, there’s no apparent motive.

Until the perpetrators are caught, you might want to stick with ordering delivery.