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Wednesday 26 April 2023
For all advertising and editorial, call 03 5974 9000 or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au Chapter and verse: Ready for the arrival of Poet’s Corner at Flinders Golf Club are, from left, the club’s functions chef Maddi Gerloff and Poet’s Corner members Amy Campion and Heather Forbes McKeon. Picture: Yanni
Poets move on course AFTER a pandemic enforced three-year hiatus Poets Corner will resume live poetry readings every two months from 2pm to 4pm from Sunday 7 May at its new home at the Flinders Golf Club. There will be two open mic sets and a featured poet, who in May will be Alan Pentland. Pentland ran Melbourne’s first stand-up comedy club, Le Joke, was a key player in the multi-Logie winning TV comedy Fast Forward and has won awards at three international film festivals. A former architect and performer, Pentland in 2017 won a Slam competition and other poetry awards, culminating in the Melbourne Spoken Word Prize. Flinders Golf Club is in Bass Street, Flinders. Tickets are $5. Bookings at trybooking.com/CHOBX The golf club is licensed and food is available. Bookings can be made by calling 5989 0583 or at flindersgolfclub.com.au/cms/ourclub/dining/ Details: poetscorner.org.au or email: poetscornermp@gmail.com
Thieves hit peninsula businesses Liz Bell liz@mpnews.com.au A SMASH-and-grab crime spree across Mount Eliza, Mornington and Mount Martha has shocked residents and businesses, and prompted calls for increased CCTV and police patrols on the peninsula. About one dozen businesses were robbed between 2am and 4am on Monday 17 April, with many staff and owners arriving to work to find windows and doors smashed and cash stolen.
Mornington Peninsula Crime Investigation Unit detectives believe the crimes are linked, with cafes, milk bars, beauty salons, a clothing store and laundromat targeted It is believed two people known to police were captured on CCTV cameras at some of the break-ins, although police were unable to confirm this. Dan Force, of Via Battista, Mount Martha told customers that thieves took cash drawers from his cafe, with CCTV allegedly showing one person in a car while another broke into the store.
Other business owners have posted photos of the devastation caused by the offenders. Force said the thief worked quickly and was in and out of his store within minutes after allegedly searching for cash. Mornington Peninsula Shire Council mayor Cr Steve Holland said the scale of the attack on local businesses was shocking and called on anyone with information to contact the police. He is urging the state government to provide additional money for CCTV
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cameras so that local police “have the resources they need to deal with crimes such as this” (“Council ‘no’ to police cameras” The News 11/4/23). The council manages a small number of older CCTV cameras in some townships, including four at Mount Martha village, but doesn’t monitor them and footage is fed straight to Victoria Police. Monday’s incidents have led to fears that crime on the peninsula is out of control. Crime statistics show that while
assaults, residential burglaries and overall crime was down on the peninsula, between December 2021 and December 2022, some offences had increased. Aggravated residential burglaries were up 32 per cent on 2021 figures, commercial burglaries up 27.9 per cent and car theft up 58 per cent. The Crime Statistics Agency says long term figures – which show a significant drop in all these incidents over four years – are more important to gain a comparative understanding of recent data. Continued Page 10
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