Melbourne Venues The Laird And Eagle Leather Vandalised With Homophobic Graffiti
Image: Image: Supplied/Facebook
Iconic venuea, The Laird and Eagle Leather in Melbourne have been the subject of homophobic graffiti on their buildings over the weekend.
The Laird took to social media on Sunday to advise patrons as they continued business as normal for their Sunday social sessions.
Homophobic graffiti targets The Laird in Melbourne
Owners of The Laird have discovered their venue was the subject of a homophobic attack on the venue over the weekend, with nearby venue Eagle Leather also being targeted.
Eagle Leather was targeted on the weekend with vandals spray painting the front of the building the words that appear to read “God Hates Fags.”
Images supplied to The Star Observer (below) show the writing that was spray painted on the outside of Eagle Leather.
The venue owners of The Laird took to social media to advise patrons prior to them arriving for their weekly events that they had been targeted with graffiti as well.
“We are looking forward to you all joining us today for Sunday Social” they wrote on Sunday afternoon on Facebook and Instagram.
“Just a heads up, you’ll notice some pride flags on the building and doors when you arrive” they advised patrons of what appears to be an effort to hide the graffiti.
“We had some vandalism overnight that you don’t need to see when coming to relax and hang with friends.”
However thankfully the venue advised that the culprits appear to have been caught in the act and will hopefully be identified and dealt with soon.
“Leave it be, City of Yarra graffiti removal are on the case, and they were caught on our security cameras. See you soon.”
It was later reported that some of the graffiti at The Laird featured an image of Ned Kelly with the words “Ned Hates F*gs” which was also reported to have been used to deface the local Holocaust Museum in Elsternwick.
It was recently announced by the City of Yarra that The Laird would receive heritage protection as one three significant queer venues in Melbourne’s inner suburbs.
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Victorian Commissioner for LGBTQIA+ Communities Joe Ball condemned the attack stating:
“We are seeing a wave of attacks — not just online, but in our streets, on public transport, in homes and in schools.”
“Places meant to be safe havens are being defaced” he said.
“This culture of hate is growing, and we need to stop it at the roots.”
“The backlash against drag storytime was a warning.
“It is all connected: violence, abuse, hate speech. We must stand up for drag storytime, for safe schools and for respectful relationships programmes.
“These shape how the next generation treats us.
“The same hate appears in fires lit at synagogues, violence against women and anti-migrant rallies
“We cannot ignore it.
“We have to pull it out at the root.”
It also cannot be ignored that on the same weekend that these targeted attacks took place on our local queer venues, that local synagogues and jewish owned businesses were also being targeted in Melbourne.
A man was charged on the weekend in relation to setting fire to a Melbourne synagogue on Friday night.
The Hebrew Congregation synagogue in East Melbourne was set alight whilst patrons were in the building at the time.
No physical injuries were reported as a result of the attack.
On the same night in Melbourne two other incidents took place, however police have not confirmed any link between the incidents as yet.
Protestors entered the Jewish-owned Miznon restaurant over the weekend shouting offensive chants at the crowd, meanwhile on Saturday evening three cars were set on fire outside a local business in Greensborough.
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