NEWARK – Several Newark Police Division officers quickly diffused and disarmed a man with two weapons during a “Community Movie Night.” here at Weequahic Park July 28.
Newark Public Safety Director Brian O’Hara, who released an officer’s body camera footage Aug. 2, said two officers were on patrol along Elizabeth Avenue when they were approached by several park-goers at 9:45 p.m. that Wednesday.
They said that they had come for a screening of “Soul” but were disturbed by a man wielding a knife and a pry bar or crowbar. The officers used a plastic orange construction barrel as a shield while asking adjacent people to disperse and order the man to drop his weapons.
Officers resorted to OC-spraying the man to subdue him. Marcelino Canterero, 46, of Newark, was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
1 Dead, 8 Hurt
in Car-Bus Crash
The ECPO Crash Scene Investigation Unit is seeking out how a car ran head-on into an NJTransit bus in front of the Hawthorne Avenue School here 5:30 a.m. Aug. 17.
NJT NABI bus No. 5982 was east on Hawthorne, on its No. 27B Irvington-Bloomfield run with seven passengers aboard when the driver of a 2007 Chevy Impala turned left from Clinton Place and into the bus’ path.
The car’s driver, later identified as Paige N. Graham, 33, of Newark, was declared dead at the scene just after 6:00 a.m. The bus driver and four passengers were taken to a local hospital; the other three were treated at the scene. Buses on the Nos. 27 and 13V routes were detoured.
IRVINGTON – The first State Superior Court-Newark criminal trial ended Aug. 9 with the conviction of a township man in the Nov. 1, 2018 murder of a Newark man in the city’s West Side.
The jury told Superior Court Judge Martin Cronin that they found Harold Colbert, 45, guilty of murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession thereof for an unlawful purpose pertaining to the death of Daquan Cuttino, 25.
Colbert was accused of firing at Cuttino 11 times along the 600 block of 18th Avenue after midnight Nov. 1, 2018. Eight bullets struck Cuttino, resulting in his death at University Hospital at 1:40 a.m.
Colbert and Cuttino, who were acquainted with each other, had a “friendly conversation” that turned into a fight.
Cronin is to sentence Colbert to at least 30 years in prison without parole Oct. 1. County prosecutors, citing Colbert’s previous violent and narcotics records going back to 1995, are asking for the maximum sentence.
Colbert was sentenced to a five-year sentence Dec. 17, 1999, after pleading guilty to aggravated assault and possession of a weapon for an unlawful cause. He was previously sentenced to a five-year term March 24, 1995, after being convicted of possessing cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school and possession thereof with intent to distribute.
EAST ORANGE – It was not unusual that city firefighters assisted a man who had walked into their station here at 321 Dodd St. 6:10 p.m. Aug. 7. When Station 3 personnel realized that the man’s face wound was caused by a gunshot, they called police.
EOPD officers promptly blocked Dodd Street between Brighton and Midland avenues in a search for shell casings and other gunfire evidence. Their search detoured NJTransit’s buses on its No. 92 route that night.
A local EMT ambulance was called to take the victim to a local hospital for further treatment. EOFD Station 3 serves the city’s Franklin/Rattlesnake Hill and Doddtown sections.
ORANGE – Do not put Orange into either the pro- or anti- Cannabis-Based Business camp quite yet, for Mayor Dwayne Warren, on Aug. 14, has vetoed Ordinance 14-2021.
Warren, in his announcement received by City Clerk Joyce Lanier 9:25 a.m. Aug. 16, said he vetoed 14-2021 in part by “my conclusion that adoption of such legislation as written is not in the best interest of the City of Orange Township.”
The mayor was left to either sign or veto the ordinance that the City Council, on a 5-2 vote, had passed Aug. 4. The bill bans all six classes of CBBs within city limits, as outlined by state law, through 2026.
“Ordinance 14-2021 is potentially void,” continued Warren, “as certain votes were improperly cast, and council members may have held illegal deliberations between the first and second readings of this legislation.”
The mayor may have been alluding to a list of questions that East Ward Councilman/Council President Kerry Coley said, on Aug. 4, “a majority of the Council” had sent to Warren regarding 14-2021. Councilwoman Adrienne Wooten and South Ward colleague Jamie Summers-Johnson, who are against the ban bill, said at that same meeting that they were not included in the drafting of questions.
Wooten and Summers-Johnson, before the Bwrnbox CBD business in the Valley Aug. 12, started a petition drive to override 14-021. Bwrnbox, which moved from Maplewood some 18 months ago, sells products without the THC narcotic chemical.
The Council has meanwhile called a special virtual meeting for 7 p.m. Aug. 20 to amend the vetoed bill – two days ahead of Gov. Phil Murphy’s Aug. 22 deadline. Council members Coley, Tency Eason, Harold Johnson, Jr., Clifford Ross and Wheldon “Monty” Montague III – who had all voted for the ban bill Aug. 4 – are sponsoring the amendment, Municipalities who do not pass a CBB- allowing or banning bill are subject to the state imposing all six classes on them – but leave the said towns with the power to license the said businesses.
Members of the public are to leave questions and/or comments with Clerk Lanier’s office via Citizencomments@orangenj.gov before 7 p.m. Aug. 19.
WEST ORANGE – The Township Council had an apparent “hold the phone” moment just when they were about to take a step towards buying back to-be-redeveloped property here at their Aug. 17 meeting.
The Council, after holding a second reading and public hearing on Ordinance 2651-21 Tuesday night, “recessed” that bill instead of taking a final vote. It will be a long “phone holding” since they will revisit at their Dec. 14 meeting.
Ord. 2651-21 would authorize the township to bond $13 million to buy back seven properties from owner GP Lakeside Urban Renewal LLC, of Bloomfield, and redeveloper Prism Capital Partners. The pretext was that Prism, after 15 years in redevelopment, had defaulted on a payment to West Orange May 25.
Prism was designated as the redeveloper of the township’s Main Street Redevelopment Project in 2006. Prism, for Phase One redevelopment, had eventually turned the old Thomas A. Edison battery factory into the Edison Lofts apartment/retail complex.
Prism, on the other hand, has failed to start work on 4, 12-16, 18, 20, 24, 28, 42-49 and 55 Lakeside Ave. The 9.03 acre 55 Lakeside Ave. was the former McGraw-Edison headquarters, Barton Press building and outgoing DPW garage.
Behind-the-scenes negotiations between West Orange and Prism/GP Lakeside, however, may have postponed the township from going to the bond market.
SOUTH ORANGE – A longstanding Village Center restaurant remains closed for repairs after experiencing a second fire in nine days there Aug. 13.
SOFD Headquarters firefighters, the village’s recuse squad, several South Orange Police officers and a Maplewood fire crew converged on 106 W. South Orange Ave. early Friday afternoon. Village Fire Chief Dan Sullivan said they were responding to a phone call of help from Reservoir Restaurant owner Billy Agnellino.
Firefighters found that a pizza oven fire had spread into the eatery’s back wall. Although the blaze was extinguished within 30 minutes, they had to open sections of that wall in a search for any further fire spread.
Agnellino said that they had just reopened that day after repairing the damage done by An Aug. 5 fire. That blaze was in a kitchen exhaust vent.
The MFD fire engine crew was automatically dispatched as part of the two-towns’ firefighting consolidation process. OPD officers detoured local traffic. SORD passed out water bottles to firefighters while on standby.
The restaurant, known for its Tony salad, had been present for at least 24 years.
MAPLEWOOD – The township’s Jefferson Village Center will be getting a new grocer in a Green Way Markets in the old Kings of Maplewood building. Just when Green Way will move into 159 Maplewood Ave., however, remains an open question.
Deputy Mayor Dean Dafis said during the Township Committee’s Aug. 3 remote meeting that the Maplewood Center Alliance told him that Green Way, of Midtown Manhattan, had bought the store from KB US Holdings, of Parsippany.
KB had ended King’s 79-year run here Dec. 4, despite its consistent profitability, as part of its bankruptcy reorganization. The Maplewood store was among six Kings not included in the 27-store chain’s $96.4 million sale to Albertson’s-Acme.
Midtown Commercial Realty Principal Carlo Caparruva, of Millburn, which handled the KB-Green Way sale, told RealEstateNJ.com Aug. 16 that the latter paid $200 per square foot.
Residents and passers-by said they have seen demolition teams clearing out the old supermarket since Aug. 4. Dafis, who is the committee’s liaison to the MCA, projects a Green Way grand opening in “two or three months.”
Green Way’s other markets are in West New York and Ridgewood N.J. and Lewisboro, N.Y.’s Cross River section. The Ridgewood store was also a former Kings. The three-store chain is noted for its emphasis on fresh produce, a coffee and burger bar and, pre-pandemic, a lounge area.
BLOOMFIELD – Police detectives are on the lookout for the man who ran and drove away from a North Center convenience store on Aug. 4 with a carton of cigarettes.
Employees of the 7-Eleven here at 544 Broad St. told responding BPD officers that “a Hispanic man” had walked up to the cashier’s counter that Wednesday and asked for a carton of Newport 100s. The carton is valued at $100.
The man, said the employees, “tried to pay with a Metro PCS SIM card.” He then searched through his wallet for an alternate payment when he “grabs the box of cigarettes without paying and flees in a red Nissan Rogue.”
A store security camera depicts a 6-ft-tall light-complexioned man with short black widow’s peaked hair. He was wearing a white dress shirt and a black face mask with a red logo on its left-hand side.
Limited CBB Bill Passed
Mayor Michael Venezia and the entire Township Council passed a bill in special session Aug. 16 that allows limited Class 5 Cannabis-Based Businesses. The Zoom-based meeting included a second reading and a public hearing.
The bill, which amends Township Code Chapter 315 on land development, allows Class 5 CBB retailers within Bloomfield’s Central Business District and B2 business zones. Class 5 license holders must live in the township. Venezia said there are six licenses pending.
MONTCLAIR – The last resting place of comedian Trevor Moore’s remains may be here without most people realizing it – or may be in New York City, Charlottesville, Va. or Los Angeles, where he died Aug. 7.
Moore’s wife, Aimee Carlson, and the family have held a private funeral for Moore, 41, who was found on the front lawn of their address early that Saturday morning. Each of the said locations has figured into “The Whitest Kids U Know” comedy troupe co-founder and Comedy Central’s “Trevor Moore Show” star’s formation.
Moore was born here April 3, 1980 to Christian rock musicians Mickey and Becki Moore. They moved to Charlottesville, where the 12-year-old Trevor published his “Scraps” comic book, ran his “Cuddy” comic strip in the “Charlottesville Observer” and aired “The Trevor Moore Show” on local public access television.
The Virginia Commonwealth University film major moved to New York, where he parlayed a personal internship with “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels into becoming an NBC Page. He and five other School of Visual Arts students founded WKUK in 2004.
WKUK’s frequent stops on the NYC improv sketch comedy circuit led to a television pilot and two movie scripts. His blend of deadpan and rubber-faced delivery frequented “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
The Los Angeles County Examiner-Coroner has deferred releasing the cause of Moore’s death beyond being “accidental.” His sister and a three-year-old son are also among his survivors. Memorial donations may be made to NEXT for Autism.
Moore, in a July 8 Tweet, wrote, “When I die I want the obituary to refer to me as ‘local sexpot.’ “
BELLEVILLE – Mayor Michael Melham and a majority of the Township Council voted to allow CBBs within parts of the township at their Aug. 17 meeting.
Melham told “Local Talk” Aug. 18 that he signed the law which will up to four cannabis growing/manufacturing, distributing and retail selling within Belleville’s industrial or industrial areas. Those areas are along the Washington Avenue retail district and The Valley’s industrial zone.
Not all of the said zones and the several mixed zones will be open to the said CBBs. Melham, at Tuesday night’s meeting, explained that no such businesses will be sited within 1,000 feet of a school within or outside of a zone.
“What we’re doing is restricting more than what the state and Gov. Murphy are allowing,” said Melham several times during the council meeting. “If we don’t vote on a restriction, then Belleville will be wide-open to those businesses by state law.”
The mayor added that he and the council, with consultation from the township attorney, planning board members and police chief, are following the will of Nov. 2’s referendum voters. There were 67 percent of participating statewide voters and 63 percent in Belleville who approved recreational marijuana use with restrictions.
Melham, Deputy Mayor Naomy DePena, Councilman-at-Large Thomas Graziano, Second Ward Councilman Steve Rovell and Third Ward Councilman Vincent J. Cozzarrelli approved the resolution. First Ward Councilwoman Marie Strumolo-Burke and Fourth Ward Councilman John Notari dissented.
Melham added that there have meanwhile been four applications for CBB retailers filed in Town Hall.
