Dope sets himself on fire trying to torch pet store

From CBS 2:

A Queens pet store became the target of a firebomb attack, but the alleged arsonist made an embarrassing mistake.

As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported, a chair was charred in the attack on the Grand Avenue Pet Shop in Maspeth, but the birds didn’t burn, and the people fast asleep upstairs were safe.

“It would have just incinerated quick! This would have been a big, big, big fire!” store owner Jose Cardona said.

The blaze would have been massive if not for Cardona, who stayed late Sunday to care for a cat as it delivered three kittens.

He was able to grab a hose after a man wearing hoodie threw a Molotov cocktail at the door of the pet shop.

“I didn’t panic. I can’t panic,” Cardona said.

He quickly doused the flames, and prevented major damage to the Maspeth landmark where people who raise and race pigeons, including Mike Tyson, have gathered for decades.