Published: Thursday, 25th June, 2009 11:24am

Late-night fire scare at pub

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POLICE have launched a major investigation after a popular seafront pub was torched in the early hours of Friday morning.

Firefighters tackled the blaze at Garth Inn, in West Clyde Street, at 4am with two water pumps and managed to get the flames under control.

There has been no official confirmation yet, but it is thought that the fire was started by an object being thrown through the side window.

Shopowner"s wife, Irene Harper, whose husband owns The Gathering shop on the seafront, slammed the "idiots" who are believed to be behind the blaze.

She said her husband only heard about the incident when he turned up at 7.30 am at the shop and saw the fire engines.

'He arrived to put the flags up like he does every morning when he saw what was happening. The firemen had to come into the shop to make sure it was safe for us to be there.

'At first, we didn"t think that the fire had affected us, but as the day went on the smell started to come through.

'I phoned my husband because I didn"t know what to do, we had to light candles to try and get rid of it.

'It was a really bad burning smell which ruined a lot of the stock.'

But Irene said that although the business was affected, that was nothing to what the situation could have been.

'There"s flats up the stairs, the man that lives up there had to evactuated at 4 in the morning."

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