SHOTGUN FIRED IN MELBOURNE HOTEL

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30849, 7 September 1965, Page 15

SHOTGUN FIRED IN MELBOURNE HOTEL

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) MELBOURNE, Sept. 6. Three men were hit by a shotgun blast in the bar of a Melbourne hotel today. None of the men, a bartender and two customers, was hurt seriously by the pellets. The shooting was in the public bar of the Imperial Hotel, on the corner of Bourke and Soring streets opposite Parliament House. The man who is believed to have fired the shot had been sitting quietly at a corner table. Nobody saw him fire. There was a loud explosion and smell of cordite, and the man stood up and said, “Someone has shot a gun in here.” He then rushed for the door and fled. Police suspect the man had

a sawn-off shotgun in a dark airways bag he was seen to zip up seconds after the blast.

Pellets hit the barman, Max Patterson, aged 30, of Bentleigh, on the cheek. Warren Allsop, aged 25, of Bentlelgh, was hit by two pellets in one leg. A drinking companion, Graham Arthur, aged 23. was hit by six.pellets on the legs.

Arthur was treated at St. Vincent’s Hospital casualty centre. The other men did not need medical attention.

Fair Record.—The New York World’s Fair, which will close next month after two seasons, yesterday set an attendance record with more than 300,000 visitors passing through the turnstiles.—New York, September 6.