The owner of a Hobart cafe says he and his wife felt like crying when they arrived at work to find the front door kicked in by a girl caught on camera yelling in the street.
Arjun Odedra, who has run the Criterion Street Cafe for eight months, said the damage was the latest in a run of incidents around the city centre.
“Me and my wife, we walk in at like 6 in the morning and we just felt like crying,” he said.
Odedra said the timing made it worse.
“It’s like the quiet time of the year right now. Everything’s expensive finance-wise and then you get to see all these damages happening.”
He said the cafe has insurance, but he still has to pay the excess.
“Waste of time and money,” he said.
Odedra said he could not understand why anyone would do it.
“I have no idea why you would come and just kick someone’s door like that. I mean, what gives you permission? I hope they get punished or whatever they deserve.”
It is not the first problem at the cafe.
Odedra said someone stole the tip jar around a month ago, containing between $150 and $200.
School kids have also thrown whipped cream around the street, some of it landing on the cafe windows.
A nearby business owner who did not want to be named because of fear of his business being targeted said a couple of girls spat at his front window and gave staff the finger.
He said the behaviour was becoming more frequent.
It follows the arrest of six children, aged 12 and 13, after a group allegedly assaulted several people in the Hobart CBD on Saturday afternoon.
The council installed 83 fixed and two semi-permanent security cameras across the city in 2024 in an attempt to curb incidents of vandalism and destructive behaviour.
