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Author: Amy S. Rosenberg

  • Murray Wolf, Avalon’s legendary beach patrol captain, has died at 87

    Murray Wolf, Avalon’s legendary beach patrol captain, has died at 87

    Murray Wolf, 87, of Avalon, the legendary no-nonsense beach patrol captain whose half-century reign inspired and guided generations of lifeguards, while aggravating some famous and not-so-famous beachgoers along the way, died Monday, Feb. 16, at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City following a stroke.

    “He was probably the most loyal person I’ve known in my life,” said his wife of 43 years, Vicki Wolf. “Anybody who came into contact with him, he made them a better person, no question about it.”

    Murray Wolf was captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol for more than a half-century and spent 65 years on the patrol. “He had the highest of standards,” said John Glomb, who served under him for decades.

    “He had the highest of standards,“ said John Glomb, who served under him for decades. ”When the conditions were not favorable, he drove around the beaches and made sure the guards were on top of their bathers, making sure that nobody was in harm’s way. He had a record where in his 65 years, there was never a drowning. That’s a record that is absolutely spectacular.”

    Not everyone appreciated Mr. Wolf’s brand of beach enforcement. In 1999, he famously tangled with then-WIP sports radio personality Angelo Cataldi over a beach tag, showing him no mercy. Cataldi endlessly railed about it on air, and never truly got over it, saying in 2016, as Wolf entered his 61st year on the beach patrol, “I do harbor ill will toward Murray Wolf, and I always will.” Cataldi did not respond to an email following news of Mr. Wolf’s passing.

    Mr. Wolf brushed off the Cataldi encounter like he did most of his encounters on the beach, a place he patrolled with military precision, complete with nightly wave-offs, stand by stand, from his jeep. Rules were meant to be enforced. But he could laugh about it, even if Cataldi couldn’t.

    There was also Frank Wilson, formerly of Chester County, who sued Avalon in 2001 and won $175,000, driven arguably mad after being repeatedly whistled out of the water when he tried to swim after 5 p.m. “We have the right to protect our bathers,” Mr. Wolf said at the time.

    Murray Wolf, shown here rowing with his son, Tyler, during his final year on the Avalon Beach Patrol.

    Within the ranks of his family — wife Vicki, sons Matthew, Erich, and Tyler, and his 10-year-old black Lab, Ruger — Mr. Wolf’s loyalty, kindness, and appreciation for Avalon’s simple pleasures were deeply admired. The same was true for the ranks of lifeguards, wrestling teams, his Pleasantville school district physical education classes, and the multiple championship South Jersey beach patrol teams he coached in Avalon with the utmost of pride.

    Mr. Wolf rode his bike around Avalon almost to the end, and walked Ruger in the deepest of snows.

    Murray Wolf, pictured here at age 77, longtime captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol. Here, King takes a break from preseason preparations to watch his son coach his baseball team.

    “He was happy to sit home and watch the football game, sit on the couch, yell at the dog for running in and out,” his wife said. “He loved his Avalon. There wasn’t one time we rode over the bridge into town when he didn’t say, ‘Oh, that was the best decision I made, moving to Avalon.’ He was just a content man, satisfied.”

    In his 61st season, Avalon’s Capt. Murray Wolf still rules the beach

    His blunt style could rub some the wrong way. Vicki Wolf, who met her husband at the Princeton, Avalon’s iconic bar, spotting at first his muscular arms, she recalled, said she always knew when someone in town had had an uncomfortable encounter with Mr. Wolf when they would veer away from her in the supermarket. He led his patrols through a pandemic, hurricanes, and new technology: He vowed to fire any guard caught with a cell phone on the stand. “It says Lifeguard on Duty,” he said in 2016. “It’s a duty.”

    “There was nothing phony about him,” Vicki Wolf said. “He was never one to take low blows about him. Not everybody liked him. He had enemies, but they respected him.”

    “He took a lot of pride in Avalon doing well — that was in everything Murray did,” Glomb said. “He ran a tight ship. He ran a tight beach.”

    In the offseason, Mr. Wolf coached championship wrestling teams and was a physical education teacher in the Pleasantville school district for 50 years. His son, Matt, took his place as Avalon beach patrol captain in 2021, and also coaches wrestling in Middle Township.

    Murray Wolf, longtime captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol pictured here in 2016 with some of his lifeguards at the patrol’s headquarters. ED HILLE / Staff Photographer

    Matt Wolf said his father had a stroke on Nov. 11 and was hospitalized until his Feb. 16 death. It seemed to so many that he might live forever, given his lifelong physical fitness and vigor, the devotion to his routines of bike riding and dog walking through town. “I think people saw him as very serious when he was in that public spotlight,” Matt Wolf said. “He had a great sense of humor. He didn’t need to be out with a bunch of people. He was happy to be home with his family.”

    Capt Murray Wolf in his 61st year on the beach

    The generations of guards who worked under him paid tribute to Capt. Wolf following his passing. “It was an honor to work with The Captain — there’s nobody quite like him,” Ryan Finnegan wrote on Facebook. “He taught his guards countless life lessons over the decades. Thousands of lives were saved because of him. The beaches in heaven are much safer now! Rest easy Capt.”

    Murray Wolf was captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol for more than a half-century and spent 65 years on the patrol. “He had the highest of standards,” said John Glomb, who served under him for decades.

    George Murray Wolf III was born Aug. 16, 1938, in Philadelphia to Elizabeth Gerhard and George Murray Wolf II and was raised on the Main Line. He and his family vacationed in Avalon from the time he was a child.

    He graduated from Conestoga High School and, after briefly working in a steel mill, Mr. Wolf attended Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., where he competed in wrestling and won a team national championship. He graduated with a degree in physical education and later earned a master’s in educational administration from Rider University.

    Mr. Wolf spent more than 50 years teaching physical education in Pleasantville. As head wrestling coach, he led the Pleasantville High School Greyhounds to the 1974 District 32 Championship. “He loved his job working with students and his colleagues at Leeds Avenue School,” his son wrote in the family obituary.

    Avalon Beach Patrol Chief Matt Wolf center, with his dad Murray and mom Vicky at the . Lifeguard Championships in Brigantine New Jersey. Monday, August 12, 2024.

    Mr. Wolf served as captain of the Avalon Beach patrol from 1967 to 2020, and served a total of 65 years on the patrol. His teams, competing in the storied lifeguard races every summer, won nine South Jersey Lifeguard Championships, and Mr. Wolf had the joy of coaching his sons in winning boats.

    Mr. Wolf and his wife were fixtures at their sons’ football, wrestling, baseball, and track and field games and meets, when their sons were competitors and, later, when their sons became coaches themselves.

    Ventnor’s retired beach patrol chief Stan Bergman, himself a legendary chief and coach, has called Mr. Wolf “a warrior.” “He’s battle-tested,” Bergman said in a 2016 interview. “They have a tough beach.”

    Murray Wolf was captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol for more than a half-century and spent 65 years on the patrol. “He had the highest of standards,” said John Glomb, who served under him for decades. He took great pride in his teams winning the South Jersey Lifeguard Championships.

    “He was a very staunch competitor,” said Ed Schneider, chief of Wildwood’s beach patrol and also a wrestling coach. “I was always nervous going up against his teams. He commanded a presence around him. He made people push themselves to be the best.”

    After Matt Wolf took his place as captain of the patrol, he would include his dad as much as possible, taking him in the jeep along the beach. Murray Wolf always attended the lifeguard races, talking to the guards about the David J. Kerr Memorial Races, a competition he began in 1984 to honor a guard who died of cancer.

    In his final weeks, when the family came into his hospital room, his wife said, he would look for his boys, and “always blow a kiss and say I love you.”

    “Every night I would get home, the dog would go sit on the deck and look down the street,” Vicki Wolf said. “It broke my heart. He was looking for Murray.”

    In addition to his wife and their three sons, he is survived by another son, George Murray IV, and a sister. A son, Michael, died earlier.

    Services will be at noon Friday, Feb. 27, at our Savior Lutheran Church, 9212 Third Ave., Stone Harbor, N.J. Visitation will be 10 to 11:45 a.m.

    Donations may be made to the Middle Township Wrestling Program or the Helen L. Diller Vacation Home for Blind Children.

    Murray Wolf was devoted to his three black labs, including Ruger.
  • A look at how Ventnor is completely rebuilding its boardwalk

    A look at how Ventnor is completely rebuilding its boardwalk

    VENTNOR, N.J. — They demolished the existing boardwalk from the tennis courts to the fishing pier, north to south, and now they are building their way back up.

    Financed mostly with federal funds granted to New Jersey from the COVID American Rescue Plan, Ventnor and other Shore towns like Ocean City, North Wildwood, Atlantic City, and Wildwood have set out to redo or upgrade their iconic pathways.

    Ventnor is using $7 million in federal funds and bonded for about $4 million more, officials said.

    Will this stretch of boardwalk reconstruction be done by Memorial Day?

    Construction continues on the boardwalk on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Ventnor City, N.J.

    “It’s always a worry,” Ed Stinson, the Ventnor city engineer, said in an interview late last month. “We’ve had multiple meetings with the contractor [Schiavone Construction], one as recent as three weeks ago. In all the meetings, he’s said it’ll be complete and open before Memorial Day.”

    The reconstruction has delivered a seven-block offseason interruption in a walkway that is popular year-round.

    Work will stop for the summer, city officials say. In the fall, a second 13-block section, from Suffolk Avenue to the Atlantic City border at Jackson Avenue, will begin. There is currently no funding or plan for the boardwalk from Cambridge south to the Margate border, said Stinson.

    The biggest change people will notice is that the original and distinctive angled herringbone decking pattern of the boardwalk is being replaced with a straight board decking. Ultimately, it came down to cost over tradition.

    “There was discussion about it,” said Stinson. “There’s additional lumber that’s wasted when you do the herringbone, and the labor to cut that material. The additional material costs were significant. It’s a waste of tropical lumber. The only reason to go herringbone is tradition and appearance.”

    The reconstruction has delivered a seven-block offseason interruption in a walkway that is popular year-round. Work will stop for the summer, city officials say.

    Other differences are changes in lighting (lower, more frequent light poles) and some enhancements of accessible ramps. The existing benches, with their memorial plaques, will be back.

    To demolish the boardwalk, the contractor cut the joist and the decking in 14-foot sections, “swung it around, carried it over to the volleyball court,” Stinson said, on Suffolk Avenue.

    “That’s where they did their crushing and loading into the dumpsters. They worked their way down and followed that with the pile removing.”

    The original herringbone pattern can be seen on the left, compared with the new straight decking pattern on the new construction side.

    The other massive job was excavating the sand that had accumulated under the boardwalk. “They screened it, cleaned it, and put it down there,” on the beach in piles. It will be spread around above the tide line, Stinson said.

    Once the excavation was down, the pile driving crew set out beginning at the south end and working their way toward Suffolk Avenue. “Then the framing crew came in and started framing,” Stinson said. On Feb. 2, the third team began its work: the decking crew.

    The weather has slowed the pace, Stinson said. “They were doing about 20 to 24 piles a day,” he said, a pace that dropped to about nine piles a day after the snowstorm and ice buildup.

    The framing crew installs pile caps, 8-by-14 beams that run across the boardwalk atop the pilings. The decking crew follows behind them, installing the wood, a tropical wood known as Cumaru. The use of Brazilian rainforest lumber at one time inspired protests, but that has not been an issue this time.

    Construction continues on the boardwalk on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Ventnor City, N.J.

    Ventnor’s boardwalk, which links to Atlantic City’s famous walkway, dates to 1910. It was rebuilt twice before: once after the hurricane of 1944 and again after the March storm of 1962. Margate, on the southern end, never rebuilt its boardwalk after 1944.

    Stinson said the tropical wood is noted for its “denseness and durability. It does not last forever.”

    In all, $100 million of American Rescue funds was set aside by Gov. Phil Murphy for a Boardwalk Fund and awarded to 18 municipalities, including, as Stinson said, “anybody who has anything close to a boardwalk.”

    Brigantine, with its promenade, received $1.18 million. Ocean City, in the process of rebuilding a portion of its north end boardwalk, received $4.85 million.

    The two biggest recipients were Asbury Park and Atlantic City, each receiving $20 million. Atlantic City has completed a rebuilding of its Boardwalk to stretch all the way around the inlet to Gardner’s Basin. Wildwood, with $8.2 million, has undertaken a boardwalk reconstruction project, and North Wildwood, receiving $10.2 million, is rebuilding its boardwalk between 24th and 26th Streets, combining the herringbone pattern with a straight board lane for the tram car.

    Although the timing of the reconstruction was no doubt prompted by the availability of the federal funds, Stinson said Ventnor’s boardwalk had shown signs of age.

    “We’ve been into some significant repairs on the boardwalk,” Stinson said. “Those have increased every year. We were getting into pile failures. It was due. I don’t know if the city would have tackled it without the [federal] money.”

    Ventnor’s boardwalk, which links to Atlantic City’s famous walkway, dates to 1910. It was rebuilt twice before: once after the hurricane of 1944 and again after the March storm of 1962.
  • As a hotel looms, a tiny Ocean City neighborhood behind the old Gillian’s fears losing its small-town feel — and its sunrise

    As a hotel looms, a tiny Ocean City neighborhood behind the old Gillian’s fears losing its small-town feel — and its sunrise

    OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Marie Crawford was immediately charmed in 2021 when she and her soon-to-be-surfer husband Rich moved into their historic house in the literal shadow of Gillian’s Wonderland Pier.

    They’d come from Blue Bell, Pa., to live year-round by the ocean, and landed with an amusement park right up the street.

    “The ball drop, that was what we heard from my house,” she said, referring to the 130-foot-high Drop Tower ride. “It was, ‘Ah, ah, ahhhhhhhh,‘” she said, imitating the screams she would sometimes hear.

    Jack Gutenkunst, left, Marie Crawford and her husband Richard with Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft coated wheaten terrier, walk along Plaza Place, in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.

    “It was so beautiful and romantic. On our porches, we would hear the ocean, not the amusement park. There were families, babies in strollers, coming up the street, flowing up to Wonderland. We were kind of ambassadors.”

    Now, more than a year after the closing of Gillian’s, the residents are faced with the possibility of a seven-story hotel they fear will block their sun, bring traffic to their streets, and threaten the small-town charm they found in their little pocket of Ocean City.

    “It’s just another example of maximizing, pushing,” said Rich Crawford, Marie’s husband, who programs music for his family’s Christian radio station, WDAC, located in Lancaster, Pa. In his 60s, Rich fell in with Ocean City’s surfing crowd and unexpectedly grew to love his little community.

    The Crawfords’ neighborhood of 100-year-old homes and 153 trees is called Plaza Place, which is one block each of Pelham Place, Plaza Place, and the north side of Seventh Street, between Wayne Avenue and Atlantic.

    Across Wayne Avenue, toward the ocean, was Wonderland. On a clear day, a red ball of sun creeps up above the boardwalk and peeks into their little neighborhood.

    On Pelham Place, residents each also own a two-foot- wide stretch of land across the street from their houses, a quirk of their deeds originally designed to prevent the rooming houses on Plaza Place that backed up against Pelham Place from using Pelham as an alleyway for their trash. There are dedicated gardeners on the streets who turn those strips into showpieces.

    The sun sets behind the Ferris wheel on the final day for the beloved Wonderland Pier in Ocean City Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.

    Neighbor Barb Doctorman, whose family owns the Islander store on the boardwalk, said she used to take her children up on the Ferris wheel and peer down at their neighborhood. So lush, it looked like a forest, she said.

    “I looked up the impact of a high-rise,” said Doctorman. “We’re going to lose some sun. The airflow is going to be totally changed from what it was. There’s a heat radiant that comes off it.”

    Her husband, Doc, said: “We want something up there, but we know there could be more of a draw to that boardwalk than just the hotel.”

    Marie Crawford (left) holds the leash of Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft-coated wheaten terrier, while standing with her husband Richard (center) and neighbor Jack Gutenkunst at the end of Pelham Place in Ocean City.

    The land is owned by developer Eustace Mita, who has proposed Icona in Wonderland, a 252-room hotel that would preserve the Ferris wheel, carousel, and some kiddie rides.

    So far, the city has not declared the site in need of rehabilitation, as Mita has requested, or otherwise moved to rezone the area to allow a hotel.

    Merchants have begged the city to allow the hotel, and described how their businesses have suffered since the closure of Wonderland. Some residents have clung to the idea that an amusement park can return, though those numbers are dwindling.

    Marie Crawford, her husband Richard, right, along with Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft coated wheaten terrier, and their neighbor Jack Gutenkunst, walk past a sign against the development of a hotel at the site of the old Wonderland Pier on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
    After the Gillian’s closure, boardwalk merchants agree it will never be the same. They want a say in what comes next.

    In Plaza Place, the opposition is less sentimental, more practical. They fear traffic, and the shadow from a neighboring seven-story hotel. Like residents in other towns who fought dunes, they fear the loss of the ocean breeze, or a shift in wind patterns that will affect surfing at the popular Seventh Street Beach.

    “It’s got that old feel to it, and everybody’s house is different,” said Marie Crawford, who bought her Craftsman Colonial on the north side of Pelham for $905,000 in 2021. She estimates it’s worth $2.5 million now. There are about 60 homes in the Plaza Place civic association.

    The association is one of several groups that are prepared to go to court if the city tries to change the zoning to allow a hotel, without going through a thorough master plan process, said Jack Gutenkunst, the Plaza Place Association president.

    While Wonderland brought thousands of people on a summer night, the pier itself had no parking. So people parked elsewhere and excitedly walked through their neighborhood on their way to the rides. People on their porches called out, “Have a blessed evening,” and chatted the night away, said Crawford. The hotel proposal calls for parking underneath the structure.

    A sign stands near the historic neighborhood behind the old site of the Wonderland Pier in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. Residents are against the development of a hotel at the boardwalk site.

    Crawford stressed that it’s not a case of selfish NIMBY, Not In My Backyard. Despite Ocean City’s decades-old pattern of replacing single-family homes with duplexes, there are nearly 1,400 homes over 100 years old still left in Ocean City, said Bill Merritt, president of Friends of OCNJ History & Culture.

    Being a block from the boardwalk, and living in a beach town, does not mean the neighborhood’s purpose is primarily hospitality, said Crawford. Its distinct, increasingly rare Jersey Shore character deserves to be valued, she said.

    “It’s height. It’s chaos. It’s the change in culture,” she said, when asked what specifically worries her about the hotel. “It’s a transient population coming through here for three nights at a time. That’s in the hospitality district. We are not the hospitality district.”

    The neighborhood behind the old Wonderland Pier site on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. Residents are against the development of a hotel at the boardwalk site.

    The demolish-and-rebuild mania that took over a lot of the rest of the island has mostly left Plaza Place alone, though residents acknowledge that is also a threat to their way of life. They also fear a hotel will prompt Plaza Placeans to sell.

    “It’s a Norman Rockwell painting, it just is,” Councilman Keith Hartzell says in the documentary Plaza Place: The Enigmatic Street, a locally made short film about the neighborhood. “It’s right here in Ocean City, and you kind of don’t expect it, when there’s two streets away a bunch of duplexes.”

    Hartzell, who is running for mayor against incumbent Jay Gillian, the former owner of Wonderland who sold to Mita, says he hopes to negotiate with Mita over height, parking, and other issues before considering any kind of zoning allowance or rehabilitation designation. A city council-appointed subcommittee tasked with assessing the boardwalk’s usage as a whole is holding a public meeting at 10 a.m. on Feb. 7 at the city’s library.

    The residents of Plaza Place worry about the survival of the hidden little neighborhood by the beach they fell in love with. “The neighborhood is so beautiful and so old,” said Marie Crawford. “If the hotel goes in, the dramatic change that will be for all of us with the traffic, the tone of the neighborhood — you’re going to see people sell. That threatens the neighborhood. The people won’t want to stay.”

  • A N.J. power broker’s son was convicted in a fatal hit-and-run. Former Gov. Murphy pardoned him on his last day.

    A N.J. power broker’s son was convicted in a fatal hit-and-run. Former Gov. Murphy pardoned him on his last day.

    The governor’s pardon was issued Tuesday even before a jury convicted Harris Jacobs, 28, for a hit-and-run in Atlantic City that killed a pedestrian.

    The pardon was one of 97 issued by former Gov. Phil Murphy in his final hours in office. Jacobs’ attorney, Lou Barbone, told the news site BreakingAC that his client was notified even before the jury came back with its verdict on Tuesday.

    Gov. Mikie Sherrill was sworn in at noon Tuesday to be New Jersey’s 57th Governor.

    Jacobs is the son of attorney and Atlantic City power broker and Democratic fundraiser Joe Jacobs, who has longstanding ties to Murphy and his wife, Tammy.

    Harris Jacobs was involved in a fatal hit and run at 3:30 a.m.on Sept. 4, 2022 outside the Dunkin’ Donuts at Atlantic and Indiana in Atlantic City, according to the Atlantic County Prosecutor.

    Jacobs spoke to his father 10 times after the crash, but never called police, according to testimony reported by BreakingAC.

    The pedestrian, Orlando Fraga, 76, was pronounced dead at the scene. Both Fraga and Jacobs were from Atlantic City.

    Seven hours after the accident, Jacobs was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident. He was initially jailed is in the Atlantic County Justice Facility, but later released pending his trial.

    Surveillance video showed Harris stopping at the Dunkin’ Donuts and rushing to the injured man. He told his roommate what happened, according to BreakingAC’s account of the trial, and repeatedly called his father, but did not call police.

    A first trial in May ended without a verdict. But the retrial ended in conviction on Tuesday, which was immediately nullified by the governor’s pardon.

    Barbone did not immediately return a request for comment. The governor’s office also did not respond to a request.

    The second-degree conviction would have carried a sentence of five to 10 years under New Jersey law.

  • After the Gillian’s closure, boardwalk merchants agree it will never be the same. They want a say in what comes next.

    After the Gillian’s closure, boardwalk merchants agree it will never be the same. They want a say in what comes next.

    OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Along the commercial stretch of Ocean City’s boardwalk, from Sixth to 14th Streets, there are 167 storefronts, including four Kohr Bros. Frozen Custards, three Johnson’s Popcorns, three Manco & Manco Pizzas, and eight Jilly’s stores of one type or another.

    There are eight mini-golfs, nine candy shops, 18 ice cream places, 10 pizza shops, 18 arcades or other types of amusements, five jewelry stores, three surf shops, five T-shirt shops, and 47 clothing or other retail shops. There is one palm reader.

    Even without Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, the iconic amusement park at Sixth Street that famously closed in October 2024, it still adds up to a classically specific, if repetitive, Jersey Shore boardwalk experience. Many of the shops are owned by the same Ocean City families, some into their third generation.

    But now these very shop owners are sounding the alarm.

    “This is a group that’s been hanging on for a long time,” Jamie Ford, owner of Barefoot Trading Co., at 1070 Boardwalk, said in an interview last week. “These places are hanging in there. They’re not going anywhere, but we’re nervous.”

    The merchants have urged city officials to green-light a proposal by Icona’s Eustace Mita to build a seven-story hotel on the Wonderland site. But officials have twice balked at starting the process.

    Chuck Bangle, owner of the storied Manco & Manco Pizza, warned planning officials he might close one of his three locations if business did not pick up. Other boardwalk property owners said longtime tenants were not returning.

    “It’s the 70th year of our family business, the 34th year on the boardwalk,” Bangle told the planning board Jan. 7, before it eventually deadlocked 4-4 on whether the Wonderland site should be declared in need of rehabilitation. “I wrestled with closing the Eighth Street location. I don’t want to close. The impact of Wonderland’s closing on all the merchants has been substantial.”

    Business along Boardwalk near 7th Street, Ocean City, NJ., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.

    Gillian’s, which was last operated by Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian under a lease from Mita, had anchored the north end of the boardwalk at Sixth Street with its signature Ferris wheel, historic carousel, and beloved kiddie rides since 1965. Mayor Gillian recently declared personal bankruptcy, and has been sued for $600,000 in Wonderland debt.

    Into blustery January, the debate has raged about whether a luxury hotel, even one that would save the Ferris wheel, would bolster or undermine the essential character of this dry town and its beloved boardwalk.

    At this point, even the most ardent members of the Save Wonderland faction seem resigned to the reality that, as Will Morey of Morey’s Piers himself came up from Wildwood to say to the planning board, the odds of Wonderland coming to life again as an amusement park are slim to none.

    A rendering of the proposed new Icona in Wonderland Resort, to be built on the site of the old Wonderland Pier. The proposal for a 252-room resort includes saving the iconic Ferris wheel and carousel.

    It’s the rest of the boardwalk that now wants to be heard: merchants with the voice of their ancestors ringing in their ears.

    “This is an incredible opportunity,” said Ocean City Councilman Jody Levchuk, a member of the family that owns the Jilly’s stores on the boardwalk. He is also a member of a boardwalk subcommittee that will report its findings on Feb. 7. “My grandfather — who’s a big boardwalk guy — he’d walk up and he’d say this man wants to spend $170 million and you’re ignoring him.”

    Plummeting parking revenue

    A season without Wonderland took its toll. Parking figures from municipal lots tell the story.

    The 249-spot lot at Fifth and the boardwalk across from Wonderland brought in $483,921 in parking fees in 2024 (people paid an average of $21 to park there during the summer season), but dropped to $290,895 in 2025, a 40% decrease. Overall, parking revenue dropped by about a half-million dollars, from $2.46 million in 2024 to $1.95 million in 2025.

    At the end of 2025, there were a half-dozen empty storefronts, according to boardwalk merchants who keep track, mostly in the 600 block adjacent to Wonderland, though there is inevitable churn during the offseason.

    Becky Friedel, owner of 7th Street Surf Shop, said in an interview that the shop is planning to expand and take over two of the vacant boardwalk storefronts for a new breakfast and lunch spot and a clothing boutique.

    She said that while businesses have seen the loss of some of the younger clientele who used to fill Ocean City rooming houses and group Shore houses, the newer second-home owners come “with a fair amount of money.” The boardwalk also has a handful of higher-end boutiques, including the Islander. The downtown saw the opening of a Lululemon last year. Some envision a boardwalk that might include more boutiques in the mix, and fewer repeating sequences of ice cream-french fries-pizza-beachwear.

    “We’re optimistic,” Friedel said. “Obviously [Wonderland closing] hurt us a little bit, especially in the evening. Our night business isn’t as strong as it was. We’re taking over the french fry place to focus on breakfast and lunch.”

    Taking on the boardwalk

    Also optimistic are the partners behind Alex’s Pizza, the Roxborough stalwart dating to 1961 that is opening up this summer at 1214 Boardwalk, next to Candyland. Coming in hot with a tomato sauce swirl atop the pizza not unlike the Manco’s staple, Alex’s partner Rich Ennis said, “We’re more of a thin-crust pizza.”

    The enthusiasm of Ennis and partner Dylan Bear to take on the boardwalk also raises the question of whether the center of gravity will continue to shift southward, away from the no-longer-Wonderland end.

    Dylan Bear, owner of Alex’s Pizza, 1214 Boardwalk, Ocean City, NJ., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.

    “If you don’t have an anchor down there, people are not going to walk down there,” said Mark Benevento, owner of Congo Falls golf at 1132 Boardwalk, among other properties he rents out. “They will turn around at the music pier.”

    Rather than seeing the hotel proposal as a threat to the character of the town, the merchants have united to stress that they view it as essential to Ocean City’s preservation. In other Shore towns, it has been the push of residential development that has eaten away at commercial zones. The parcel is currently zoned for amusements.

    In places like Seaside Heights, Long Beach Island, and Avalon, condo and new residential construction has chipped away at the essential character of the places, replacing some of their most distinctive destinations, from restaurants to motels to bars and nightclubs.

    Mark Raab, a local pediatric dentist whose family owns five boardwalk properties in Ocean City, called the closing of Wonderland “devastating” in remarks to the planning board.

    “People don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “This year we had three businesses that closed, longtime tenants that did not renew their leases. Six years ago we had a waiting list for these properties.

    “The boardwalk is not thriving,” he said. “The boardwalk is slowly going down. It’s going down piece by piece. It is rapidly becoming a snowball effect.”

    ‘Now they have galvanized us’

    Ford, of Barefoot Trading, thinks the time has come for the view of the merchants to be heeded. The 4-4 tie at the planning board is being seen not as an outright rejection of a rehabilitation designation, which would expedite zoning allowances and possible tax abatements, but as a pass back to the city council.

    The families, he said, are “the backbone of it. What we’re speaking in favor of should carry a little bit of weight.”

    In a usually sleepy Jersey Shore January, there has been an awful lot of intrigue, and packed meetings, with the latest talk of perhaps a limited zoning change that would allow a hotel, though perhaps one not as grand (252 rooms, seven stories) as Mita is seeking.

    There is also talk of allowing residential units above boardwalk storefronts. And many believe the city council will essentially give the tie to the nonvoting planner, Randall E. Scheule, who told his deadlocked board he believed the Wonderland site did meet two needed criteria — significant deterioration and a pattern of underutilization — and to go ahead and approve the rehabilitation zone.

    Mita has said that time is of the essence. He said he has been shocked at the way the town has stymied his plan twice.

    Councilman Keith Hartzell, who twice voted against advancing Mita’s development plan, said he still wants to negotiate with Mita over height, parking, and other issues. One possibility, in conjunction with the boardwalk subcommittee, is rezoning just the 600 block of the boardwalk to allow a hotel. Hartzell has also been trying to bring a playground to that end in the meantime.

    “I’m not anti-hotel at all,” Hartzell said. “Our job is to come up with something [Mita] can do that he can make money with and be happy with.”

    For Ocean City’s merchants, the Wonderland saga, and Mita’s difficulty in getting his hotel off the ground, has prompted them to step out from behind the counter or out of the ticket booths and speak up.

    Said Benevento, the Congo Falls owner: “Maybe we have never gotten political. Now they have galvanized us.”

  • Prosecutor moves to dismiss indictments against Atlantic City superintendent, high school principal

    Prosecutor moves to dismiss indictments against Atlantic City superintendent, high school principal

    ATLANTIC CITY — The Atlantic County prosecutor said Friday his office would not go forward with a child abuse trial against Atlantic City Superintendent La’Quetta Small, the wife of Mayor Marty Small, after determining that their daughter no longer wanted the case to proceed.

    Their daughter, who turned 18 this month, testified for hours at the December trial of her father, who was later acquitted by a jury of charges that he beat his daughter with a broom and further abused her with terroristic threats.

    The office will also request dismissal of charges against Constance Days-Chapman, the principal of Atlantic City High School, who was accused of failing to properly report to the state hotline the accusations made by the daughter.

    In a statement Friday, the prosecutor said the decision was based on the daughter’s wishes and the prior verdict.

    “We believe it is prudent and responsible to dismiss the remaining indictments against them,” prosecutor Williams Reynolds said in the statement.

    The charges have been hanging over the Small family for two years. After being acquitted last month, Mayor Small shouted, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, jury.”

    Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. speaks to the media after being found not guilty on all counts of abusing his teenage daughter, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025.

    His daughter attended the ceremony when the newly reelected Small was sworn in, and the mayor said the family had spent New Year’s Eve together like old times and begun the healing process.

    Small, 51, faced charges stemming from a handful of incidents in late 2023 and early 2024 in which prosecutors said he and his wife abused and assaulted the teen. The couple said the incidents stemmed from their disapproval of their daughter’s relationship with a young man, leading to escalating tension and arguments in the family home.

    The jury delivered its verdict at noon after having deliberated for two days. They found Small not guilty of endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated assault, making terroristic threats, and witness tampering. A conviction would have required Small to relinquish his office.

    La’Quetta Small was scheduled to stand trial in April on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and simple assault.

    Also facing a forthcoming trial was Days-Chapman, the principal of the Smalls’ daughter’s high school. Prosecutors say when the teen reported her parents’ abuse, Days-Chapman failed to notify child welfare authorities and instead told the couple of the report.

    Days-Chapman, who is Marty Small’s former campaign manager, was later charged with official misconduct and related crimes.

    Mayor Small could not be reached for comment.

    La’Quetta Small’s lawyer, Michael Schreiber, said Friday he was “happy they decided to do the right thing.”

    “It was a very difficult time for my client and her husband and their daughter,” he said. “We have to work on reunification, which is hard.”

    He said the matter should have been handled by counselors or in family court, “where you have therapists to help everyone involved.”

    “When the case is over, the prosecutor goes to the next case,” he said. “Where does that leave everybody? What is the benefit of the prosecution to the daughter? Whether it’s guilty or not guilty, how do you pick up the pieces and help this family?”

    He said he would now be officially appealing a ruling by the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency that made an initial finding that substantiated the allegations.

    He said the daughter has been living with her boyfriend and his mother.

    In the statement, the prosecutor said the victim had last week “received a threat, racial in tone, on one of her social media accounts pertaining to her accusations she made against her father.”

    “While we actively investigate this threat, we believe it is no longer in her best interest both emotionally and perhaps even physically for us to continue with our cases against La’Quetta Small and Constance Days-Chapman at this time,” the prosecutor said. “The further intent of this decision is to hopefully allow [the daughter], her family, and the community the time to heal and move forward.”

  • Ocean City’s planning board deals another blow to the proposal to build a hotel at the defunct Wonderland Pier

    Ocean City’s planning board deals another blow to the proposal to build a hotel at the defunct Wonderland Pier

    OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Once again, the football was yanked away from would-be Ocean City boardwalk hotel developer Eustace Mita just as he was about to kick it.

    Ocean City’s planning board unexpectedly deadlocked Wednesday night on a request to declare the old Wonderland Pier site “in need of rehabilitation,” dealing a significant setback to Mita’s plan to build a luxury hotel on the boardwalk property.

    The vote is the second time Ocean City has thwarted Mita’s attempts to move his project forward (though, in loop-the-loop fashion, an earlier no vote by City Council was later reversed.)

    Mita, who has proposed turning the property into Icona in Wonderland, called Wednesday’s vote an “incredibly serious roadblock.” He said he indeed felt a bit like Charlie Brown to the city government’s Lucy, and revived thoughts of selling the property.

    A rendering of the proposed new Icona in Wonderland Resort, to be built on the site of the old Wonderland Pier. The proposal for a 252-room resort includes saving the iconic Ferris wheel and carousel.

    The board was split 4-4 with half the members agreeing that the property was significantly deteriorated and underutilized, two legal criteria needed for the designation.

    But half the board, including chair John Loeper, said they did not believe the criteria had been met, and noted some businesses were open last summer at the front of the property.

    The matter still will go back to City Council for a final vote on the designation, but Mita said if Council waits too long, he will unload the property.

    The “in need of rehabilitation” designation has been long sought by Mita, who wants to build a $150 million luxury hotel at 600 Boardwalk.

    The designation would allow site-specific zoning changes and possible tax breaks. The site is currently zoned for amusements.

    After the meeting, Mita said he was shocked by the failure of the board to recommend the designation. “It’s been deteriorated for decades before I bought it,” he said. “I’m very very disappointed. This is the poster child for rehabilitation. ”

    Gillian’s Wonderland Pier closed in October 2024, ending nearly a century of amusement ride ownership by the Gillian family in Ocean City. Mayor Jay Gillian had sold the property to Mita and leased it back from him, but said he could not make the enterprise profitable.

    Gillian recently declared Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy, listing nearly $6 million in debt.

    Wednesday’s vote brought about 150 people out to another iconic boardwalk structure, the Music Pier, on a pleasantly warm January evening.

    About three dozen members of the public spoke, including Mita himself, who said the city would benefit “tenfold” from his development plans. The speakers were evenly divided in their views.

    A visit from Will Morey

    Will Morey came up from Wildwood to lay bare what many in Ocean City did not want to hear — reviving Wonderland Pier as an amusement park would be next to impossible.

    “Starting from the ground up, it is not financially feasible,” Morey, the CEO of Morey’s Piers, told the city’s planning board. “It’s a very challenging lift.”

    The board could not agree that the property met the legal criteria for the designation: that it was significantly deteriorated and showed a pattern of vacancy and underutilization.

    “It’s an enormous piece of property that’s literally falling apart on the oceanfront,” said board member Dean Adams.

    But Loeper, the chair, called the abandonment “self-inflicted” and said he would need more proof of the deterioration.

    Engineering and other studies put the cost of repairing the carousel, Ferris wheel, and log flume at $6.5 million, and the cost of fixing the site’s concrete foundation and pilings at $3.9 million.

    The matter will still go back to Ocean City’s City Council, which is also awaiting a report from a boardwalk subcommittee.

    Eustace Mita arriving at the Ocean City Music Pier for a city planning board meeting on Wednesday. He was seeking a recommendation that the old Wonderland Pier site he owns be declared “in need of rehabilitation,” which he described as “Step 2” in his plan to build a luxury hotel.

    ‘The boardwalk is not thriving.’

    Opponents asked board members to deny the “in need of rehabilitation” designation. They scoffed when Jody Arena, a construction expert who testified about the property’s deteriorated state, acknowledged that Mita was a partner in his firm, Caritas Construction.

    They surmised that similar photos of deterioration could be taken of the Music Pier, where the meeting was held. One resident, Jim Tweed, said the designation would threaten “decades of restraint.”

    Business owners, including the owners of Manco’s, George’s Candies, Cousin’s Restaurant, Barefoot Trading, and Ocean City Bikes, asked the board to approve the designation to avoid further closures of businesses. They described a devastating impact from the closure of Wonderland Pier.

    Boardwalk property owner Mark Raab said three of his tenants had decided to close their shops. “People don’t know what’s been going on,” he told the board. “The boardwalk is not thriving. It’s going down piece by piece.”

    “We are a city based on tourism,” said Cousin’s Restaurant owner Bill McGinnity. “We’d appreciate a vote of ‘yes’ tonight so that we can move forward quickly,”

    Others resisted any fast-tracking of development. Donna Saber, owner of Here Comes the Bride shop, brought along a copy of the original 1881 deed that she said sought to preserve its original intent as a place for child amusements.

    “It was deeded as an amusement park,” she said.

    Donna Saber, owner of Here Comes the Bride bridal shop in Ocean City, holds a copy of the original 1881 deed to the property that was the Wonderland Pier. She’s opposed to a plan to build a luxury hotel.

    Marie Hayes, a full-time resident for 22 years, worried the designation would set a “dangerous precedent,” that would result in the town resembling Ocean City, Md., with high-rises along its oceanfront.

    The planning board was given reports submitted by Mita back in August, when council stunned some, especially Mita, by voting not to ask the board to study the site’s future. Mita immediately said he would sell the property.

    John Loeper, chair of Ocean City’s planning board, on stage at the Ocean City Music Pier. The planning board was set to vote on whether to recommend that the old Wonderland Pier site be declared in need of rehabilitation, a designation that could lead to a luxury hotel on the site.

    Sean Barnes, the city councilman liaison to the planning board, questioned Wednesday whether the rides should even be considered part of the property.

    “Amusement rides are not structures,” said Helen Struckmann, a resident who has opposed the hotel idea and vowed to save Wonderland Pier. She said the historic carousel was in better shape than the reports stated. “They don’t justify the need for rehabilitation designation for the property. Different amusement rides have been swapped out.”

    She and others questioned why Mita had not addressed deterioration of the property since purchasing it in 2021. Mita is “now requesting a benefit from his purposeful underutilization of the property,” said resident Bob Duffy.

    But Mita said he’d waived rent on the property so that Jay Gillian could try to make a go of the amusement pier. He said he’d put in $500,000 last summer to open the front portion of the property as an arcade, coffee and pizza shop, and bike shop.

    Engineer Matt Mowrer told the planning board the property was “heavily deteriorated,” with “concrete spalling” — chunks of concrete breaking off from the foundation. He said corrosion from salt air would get only worse.

    Board planner Randall Scheule told the board Wednesday he believed the structural deterioration of the property itself and the underutilization of the property met the standards. There was some debate as to whether the rides themselves should be included in any analysis.

    The board looked at whether the site met the legal criteria needed for the designation, which will allow City Council to rezone the site for a hotel and grant tax abatements.

    Will Morey, president and CEO of Wildwood’s Morey’s Piers, testifies in Ocean City at a planning board meeting to determine the future of the old Wonderland Pier.

    The board did not discuss Mita’s specific hotel plans, which have included the carousel and Ferris wheel and some kiddie rides.

    The old Wonderland Pier site on the boardwalk in Ocean City, N.J., as seen from Wayne Avenue on Jan. 6. The beloved amusement pier shut down in October 2024. A developer wants to build a luxury hotel. A report put the cost of repairing the Ferris wheel, carousel, and log flume at as much as $6.5 million.
    Five minutes before the 6 p.m. scheduled closing all but one of the gates are shut on the Boardwalk, on the final day for the beloved Wonderland Pier in Ocean City Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.

    Last summer, four businesses operated on the site: Ocean City Pizza Company, Dead End Bakehouse, Wonderland Pier Arcade, and OC Bikes and Rentals. Mita entertained several offers to sell, including one from the Norcross brothers, who envisioned residential development.

    Planner Tiffany Morrissey told the planning board that showed the property was underutilized.

    The property is assessed at $15.8 million, which translates to an estimated market value of about $29 million.

    Saving the site as an amusement park has been the focus of much despair among community members and others with generations of memories at Wonderland Pier.

    But the reports lay out the deterioration of the pier’s marquee attractions.

    The report states that the carousel, which dates to the 1920s, would require as much as $1.5 million in repairs, including a new electrical system and repair or replacement of the telescopes, the poles that support the horses.

    The Ferris wheel is also in need of substantial repair, costing as much as $2.5 million, including replacing or repairing the lights, and rebuilding the spokes and “spreader bars,” which connect the spokes and form the arc.

    The Log Flume Ride, built in 1992, would need substantial repairs estimated at between $2.5 and $4 million, including rebuilding the upper troughs.

    No company has stepped forward with a plan to keep the site solely an amusement park.

  • Moody’s boosts Atlantic City to investment grade a decade after its near bankruptcy

    Moody’s boosts Atlantic City to investment grade a decade after its near bankruptcy

    ATLANTIC CITY — A decade after teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and being taken over by the State of New Jersey, Atlantic City has been given an investment-grade rating by Moody’s Ratings.

    “Today is a tremendous day to start the new year,” Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. said Monday at a livestreamed news briefing. “The city of Atlantic City is officially investment grade.”

    The credit rating of Baa3 puts the city in the lowest long-term investment-grade category, several steps from the top A ratings. But it marks a dramatic rise from 10 years ago, Small noted, when he was sworn in as the City Council president.

    “We had the junkiest junk bonds imaginable,” he recalled. “The city’s finances were not in a good state. Employees were getting paid once a month. People were running to the bank to cash their checks. The outlook was bleak. We even entertained that we were bankrupt. It was a long, drawn-out fight. However, that was then; this is now.”

    Small himself ended 2025 in dramatic fashion: a two-week trial that ended in an acquittal on charges that he physically abused his teenage daughter.

    Small and business administrator Anthony Swan said at the Dec. 31 meetings that Moody’s expressed interest in seeing a stable government and experienced department directors.

    Small was sworn in to a new four-year term on New Year’s Day with his daughter in attendance and said then that the family has begun the healing process. A decision is expected soon by the Atlantic County prosecutor on whether to pursue similar charges against his wife, La’Quetta Small, the city’s schools superintendent.

    The state’s takeover of Atlantic City expired Dec. 1. But another bill is moving through the legislature that will leave the state in charge of Atlantic City finances for another six years. It calls for a “master developer” to oversee major projects, even as the city is trying to regain control over planning and zoning.

    There are other challenges ahead for Atlantic City: New York City approved three casino licenses that could cut a substantial hole in Atlantic City’s gambling revenue and prompt state lawmakers to approve casinos in North Jersey. Casino owners also oppose an effort to ban smoking in the city’s casinos that is now before an appellate court.

    Though the state takeover began a decade ago in hostile fashion, it evolved to a cooperative partnership. Small praised the decision by incoming Gov. Mikie Sherrill to keep Jacquelyn Suárez as head of the state’s Department of Community Affairs, which would oversee the next takeover.

    Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. speaks to the media after being found not guilty on all counts of abusing his teenage daughter, on Dec. 18.

    But Monday was a day of triumph for the city.

    Small noted that the city had substantially reduced its debt to $228 million, down from a peak of $550 million, and cut taxes six years in a row. Of that, only $71 million is debt directly incurred by the city; the rest are legacy debts from money owed to casinos from tax appeals. He anticipated announcing a seventh tax cut in the coming weeks.

    “This government gets criticized all the time,” he said. “People say, ‘Oh they’re spinning like drunken sailors, spinning spinning spinning like it’s out of control.’ Ladies and gentlemen, that’s just not true.”

    Business administrator Swan said Moody’s was interested in more than just numbers. “It’s about the stability of the city,” he said. “It’s about how the city is run.”

    Finance director Toro Aboderin called the announcement “an extraordinary milestone.” She said Moody’s asked about “bulkheads, roads, infrastructure.”

    “Restoring Atlantic City to sound financial footing has been our top priority every single day,” she said. “A lot of people talk about Atlantic City and how we’re terrible, how the finances are the worst, and the roads are messy. They say all kinds of things, but we have attained something quite remarkable.”

    Officials hope the vote of confidence from Moody’s will signal to investors and developers to look again at their city, which has some of the most affordable beachfront real estate on the East Coast.

    An investment-grade credit rating signals to financial markets that Atlantic City is a lower-risk borrower, although the mayor emphasized that the city currently has no need to borrow.

  • Atlantic City officials, community leaders condemn ‘aggressive’ and ‘appalling’ ICE activity in the area

    Atlantic City officials, community leaders condemn ‘aggressive’ and ‘appalling’ ICE activity in the area

    ATLANTIC CITY — Elected officials, religious leaders, and community activists gathered Tuesday in City Hall to condemn recent “aggressive” and “appalling” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the resort town.

    “The reason I’m here is because just last week, our community was attacked,” said Alexander Mendoza, a community organizer with advocacy group El Pueblo Unido of Atlantic City. “Fathers, friends, family members, hardworking people were taken away from us by an inhumane system called ICE.”

    El Pueblo has been highlighting recent ICE activity in Atlantic City on its social media, including a car stop on Dec. 12 that led to the detainment of two men, one of whom subsequently missed the birth of his daughter earlier this week after being taken to Delaney Hall. The group called the car stop illegal and said the Mexican Consulate is working to provide the man with legal help.

    “He and his partner had just moved into a new apartment and were ready to begin a new chapter in their lives,” Mendoza said. “That morning changed everything. He was taken by ICE and is now being held at Delaney Hall.”

    Death of Delaney Hall detainee spurs calls for closure

    Mendoza said this and other recent activity, including ICE agents establishing a base of operations at the city’s Bader Field, the former municipal airport, have left community members fearful and officials alarmed and outraged.

    “There’s a lot of hysteria, a lot of fear in our community, rightly so,” said Cristian Moreno-Rodriguez, executive director of El Pueblo. There were rumors this week that businesses, particularly laundromats, would be targeted this week in Atlantic City and Pleasantville, he said.

    “We strategically placed ourselves throughout different traffic hubs where our community is, our immigrant working-class community,” he said.

    Moreno-Rodriguez said his organization has tracked some of the same ICE vehicles conducting activity in Bridgeton, Cumberland County.

    ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding activity in the area.

    El Pueblo has been educating community members of their rights and training volunteers to document and respond to reported ICE activity. He said the response time in Pleasantville is about two minutes; in Atlantic City, it’s 4 to 5 minutes.

    Atlantic County is home to about 12,000 undocumented immigrants. Moreno-Rodriguez said the volunteers include non-Hispanic allies and young Latinos, “children who are standing up for their parents and neighbors.”

    City Council Vice President Kaleem Shabazz said the council adopted a resolution last week condemning the ICE activity, which he said had made his constituents wary of leaving their homes without carrying documentation of their citizenship. He said police had not been informed about the raids or the use of Bader Field.

    Moreno-Rodriguez said the city is about 33% Latino or Hispanic, and about 29% immigrant, with most Spanish-speaking immigrants coming from Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and smaller numbers from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Nearby Pleasantville is about 50% Hispanic and has a sizable Haitian population, he said.

    Both Moreno-Rodriguez and Shabazz called on businesses, which employ many immigrants, to support their workers. Moreno-Rodriguez said one man who self-deported after being picked up by ICE had worked for one of Atlantic City’s iconic bread bakeries.

    “If you go into any of the small businesses of Atlantic City, they are powered by immigrant labor,” Moreno-Rodriguez said. “And we want to put out a call to action to all the business owners of Atlantic City that if you employ immigrants, please be there for them when they are detained. Please be there for them after they’ve given you hours of labor, years of blood, sweat, and tears to your business.”

    From left, advocacy group El Pueblo Unido of Atlantic City rapid responders Karen Pelaez-Moreno and Christopher Arellano, executive director Cristian Moreno-Rodriguez, Atlantic City Councilman Kaleem Shabazz, and El Pueblo board president Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez, who was recently appointed a Pleasantville School Board member. The group and elected officials held a press conference Dec. 23, 2025 to condemn recent ICE activity.

    Also attending the news conference were the Rev. Collins Days, an Atlantic County commissioner, and religious leaders Imam Amin Muhammad of Atlantic City’s Masjid Muhammad mosque, Cantor Jackie Menaker of Ventnor’s Shirat Hayam synagogue, and the synagogue’s president, Joe Rodgers, a criminal defense attorney.

    “I am appalled at what’s been happening in our community by ICE,” Days said. “We stand together because an attack on one group is an attack on all groups.”

    “When we see the harms of our government, we are obligated to speak out,” Muhammad said. “We need engagement in the political process to make a change.”

    Mendoza said activists believed the targeted raids of last week were “the beginning of a large raid on our community … a major escalation.”

    “When we drove down Iowa Avenue, we saw an ICE agent and a Border Patrol agent questioning a woman, attempting to extract information in order to detain her,” he said. “When the agents noticed us, they allowed the woman to walk away.”

    One of the agents claimed to be looking for a fugitive, he said.

    Activists followed the man to Bader Field, where they saw a transport van and eight other vehicles. “That’s when we knew this wasn’t a small operation,” he said. “As soon as the agents realized they were being watched, they left quickly and quietly. It just took two Latino organizers standing by, holding cameras, for ICE to retreat from Atlantic City. ICE operates in the shadows. When people know their rights and when there is accountability, they scatter.”

  • Jason Kelce invests in Sea Isle City’s Hank Sauce

    Jason Kelce invests in Sea Isle City’s Hank Sauce

    Jason Kelce, a man of voracious appetite and enthusiasm, is putting his money behind a local Jersey Shore brand, Hank Sauce.

    The hot sauce company, based in Kelce’s beloved Sea Isle City and sold everywhere from surf shops to the Acme, produces a variety of hot and not-so-hot sauces that have become ubiquitous at the Jersey Shore and Philadelphia area.

    The deal with Kelce’s Winnie Capital was announced in two ways: a sedate corporate press statement, and a not-at-all sedate Instagram post featuring a full-throated Kelce throwing jabs and juggling bottles of Hank Sauce, growling and snarling about the wonders of the flavorful sauce. As only the pitchman and iconic Eagles great can do.

    The hot sauce sold out of surf shops

    “BAM! POW! POW FLAVOR! YEEEEOWWWWWW,” Kelce spitballs for the camera from inside the Hank Sauce restaurant in Sea Isle, an array of sauce laid before him, before he and others off-camera dissolve in laughter. “You got some eggs that don’t have any [beeped expletive] flavor? Well we got you covered baby.

    “Any notes?”

    Someone throws him a bottle from stage right; he makes the catch. “I’m glad I looked,” he said.

    In the comments, and in the press statement, Kelce calls Sea Isle “right in my backyard in South Jersey,” and says he and the three founders plan to “take this thing to the next level.”

    The Kelce family owns a $2.2 million vacation home in Sea Isle, hosts his annual celebrity bartending Eagles fundraiser at the Ocean Drive, and support local causes like Mike’s Seafood walk for autism.

    “This one was a no-brainer,” Kelce said in the Instagram post. “I’ve been a consumer of this product and a fan of this brand for a long time.”

    Former Eagles player Jason Kelce rips off his pants during the fifth annual Team 62 at the Ocean Drive celebrity bartending event on Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Sea Isle City, NJ. The event raises funds for the Eagles Autism Foundation.

    A regular in Sea Isle City with his family, Kelce said he walked into Hank Sauce in 2015 and met Brian “Hank” Ruxton himself, who took the Eagles star into the back where they shared a beer.

    “I like these guys,” Kelce said.

    The statement described the arrangement as “a strategic equity investment from former NFL player, podcaster, and investor Jason Kelce.”

    “The new investment and partnership with Kelce’s Winnie Capital will accelerate national expansion and increase Hank Sauce’s visibility and reach in new markets across the country,” the statement said.

    Founded in 2011 by three college roommates — Ruxton, Matt Pittaluga, and Josh Jaspan — as “a hot sauce for people who don’t like hot sauce,” Hank Sauce was first made in a garage, and hand-bottled for six years. The company eventually expanded into a 10,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Millville, and is now sold in more than 5,000 stores nationwide, according to the press statement.

    Matt Pittaluga (from left), Kaitlin Ruxton and Brian Ruxton are the dream team behind the Hank Sauce phenomenon. (DAVE GRIFFIN / For The Inquirer)

    Hank Sauce comes in multiple variations, including the original Herb Infused, plus Cilanktro, Camouflage, and Hank Heat.

    As part of the deal, Kelce will “collaborate with Hank Sauce on original content and ongoing brand strategy,” the statement says.

    “We’ve poured our lives into building this brand, and we couldn’t be more excited to have Jason on board — not just as a partner and ambassador, but as a genuine fan long before this partnership,” Pittaluga said in the statement.

    Winnie Capital is described as “a private family office supporting the business and philanthropic activities of Jason and Kylie Kelce. The Winnie portfolio includes diverse investments and partnerships across media, athletics, consumer packaged goods, apparel, real estate, agriculture, and technology.”