So Long, Sisto

'Pellegrini's' with the Tribute to Sisto in the window

Melbourne, November 2018

It might be the first time a restaurateur got a State Funeral, but we won’t fuss because Sisto Malaspina, barista and bartender of Pellegrinis Bar, was a Bourke Street institution, who died needlessly after trying to render assistance to man who appeared to have been injured in a car wreck. The man, 30-year-old Somali-born Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, was an Islamo-nut who had deliberately wrecked the car and ignited gas bottles loaded in the back, after which he set about the street on foot with a knife.  He stabbed Sisto to death, knifed two others, and then danced about with two cops before they gunned him down.  The killer died in hospital: good riddance.

Sisto Malaspina was 74. Witnesses who tried in vain to help him after the attack described the moment, “We were waiting — we were waiting forever — and hoping that he might make it, but I think we were prepared for the worst.”