HE Porter’s Video Store at Davis Plaza in Westmoreland went up in flames earlier this week after a bottle bomb was hurled onto the premises.

Damage has been estimated at $3 million.

The attack has left proprietor Ainsworth Porter baffled about why anyone would set his store on fire.

“Mi nuh have no problem with anybody,” Porter, who has been in the business since 1985, told the Observer. “Me nuh know why a man would do something like that.”

At approximately 12:10 am Monday, Porter, who lives near his store, was awakened to shouts of “fire!” and heavy smoke coming from the shop.

The single unit from the Savanna-la-Mar fire brigade that responded to the fire could save neither the shop nor its contents, which were not insured.

When the smoke cleared a Molotov cocktail bomb was recovered from the scene by the Savanna-la-Mar Criminal Investigation Branch. Counting his $3-million losses, Porter said included in that was more than $300,000 worth of tapes bearing weddings, funerals and parties that should have been collected by clients but warer destroyed. In addition, eight video cameras, four super VHS VCRs, four televisions, two computers, video lights and hundreds of filed videocassettes were also among the equipment destroyed.

But despite the losses, Porter said he plans to rebuild his business. To date, he has received assistance from Honeyghan’s Funeral Service, with whom he has a contract to shoot videos.