Reports over the live police scanner indicated that there was an incident involving a sick “underage drinker” who had passed out at a residence on Hudson Street between 3rd and 4th Streets. Judging by what was overheard, he was very sick, “unresponsive” and “puking”. They also checked for “CDS”.

I surmised that they took the sick party to Jersey City Medical Center as the Hoboken ambulance corp is on the way back from there now.

8/31/2007 Update:

The plot thickens in the state criminal investigation of Hoboken Construction Code Official Al Arezzo. The Jersey Journal’s Jarrett Renshaw reports the state Attorney General’s Office issued a subpoena for records from Weehawken’s Building Department to turn over documents related to its oversight of construction projects in neighboring Hoboken dating back to 1990. The Weehawken subpoena came a day after two officers from the State Police’s Organized Crime Unit made a surprise visit to Hoboken City Hall, issuing several subpoenas and leaving with scores of documents.

The AG’s Office has convened a grand jury as part of its ongoing investigation of Arezzo’s personal relationships and business dealings. The state Department of Community Affairs is also conducting an investigation of Arezzo, and the agency issued subpoenas to Hoboken earlier this year and also visited Weehawken to interview Building Department employees, several sources said.

Arezzo asks the Weehawken’s Building Department to oversee projects where he has a financial interest in order to avoid conflicts of interest. However, when he looks to Weehawken for a conflict-free procedure, what he gets is his old buddy Frank Tattoli. Now, you say the name Tattoli is familiar? That’s because Frank is the brother of Hoboken plumber/developer Danny Tattoli, who is building the “new” Clam Broth House. Renshaw’s article says:

Weehawken’s top construction code official, Frank Tattoli, said yesterday that he inspected “three or four” of Arezzo’s projects in recent years, mentioning a property on the 600 block of Willow Avenue as an example before declining to provide the other addresses. Tattoli, a lifelong plumber, and his family have business ties in Hoboken, but Tattoli said yesterday that he stopped his “personal involvement” with his family’s business in 2001, shortly after he took the job in Weehawken. However, Tattoli and his two brothers still own two rental properties in Hoboken, one on the 200 block of Park Avenue and the other on the 400 block of Jefferson Street, according to his financial disclosure statement.

The subpoena seeks records dating back more than 10 years before Tattoli was employed by Weehawken, as well as from a number of different offices, such as the Fire and Health departments, city officials noted. Developer Danny Tattoli, Frank Tattoli’s brother, received a subpoena earlier this week, according to Danny Tattoli’s attorney, William Dimin. The Attorney General’s Office requested documents related to Danny Tattoli’s purchase of a vacant lot at 74-76 Monroe St., Dimin said.
Real estate records show that Danny Tattoli purchased the vacant property in 2003 for $1.1 million from a limited-liability company called Triple Minga, whose partners include Arezzo.

Roughly eight months earlier, Arezzo and his partners had purchased the vacant property for less than $200,000, records show. Tattoli eventually constructed nine condo units on the property. Dimin said the sale was completely “legit” and that his client plans to fully cooperate with the subpoena. Dimin said his client was not even aware that Arezzo was one of the sellers, characterizing the sale as an “arms-length transaction.”

Danny Tattoli is one of the members of Arezzo’s “crew” of local developers and contractors who hang with him at the Four L’s. He was one of several Arezzo supporters who showed up at the Special City Council meeting this month to cheer him on as he stood toe-to-toe with Mayor Roberts over the opening and closing of the wall at the Maxwell Place lawn. Now people are wondering how many other members of Arezzo’s crew got subpoenas. They are a tight-knit group who stick close to the man who can insure their projects get approvals fast for maximum profit, while others who are not in “the crew” wait for permits and inspections, and often have to face the famous Arezzo temper.

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Ok, this will be the last post of the day (providing there’s no nutty incidents, fires, accidents around town).

So for those of you left at work (or home) and on the internet, what are your plans for this “unofficial end of summer” weekend?

For many, this is the last weekend of the “shore house”. For others, this is another “partying weekend”, filled with fun barbecues, and other jovial gatherings.

How many of you feel this is a forced “obligatory” weekend? I’ve overheard some 411 readers say they just want to chill out and “veg” this long weekend. Others have said they hope the town is dead, and can relax in a less crowded atmosphere.

Speaking of less crowded, I’ve notice a few bars were closed, even last night. A couple that I noticed were Three A’s, which is in the process of a minor “clean up” renovation. They’re re-doing the floors, some painting and maybe a little exterior work. The 10th and Willow Bar & Grill was also closed. I’m assuming that’s a mini-vacation.

Here’s an interesting point a reader called me about yesterday. I never thought twice about this, but she shed light on a simple city over-expenditure.

I’m a bit ashamed for not realizing this earlier, since I hear on the police scanner all day long “115 going to gas up”, or something along similar lines. From my observation (for the HPD at least), Hoboken uses only the Exxon stations in Weehawken and Jersey City to fuel up the squad cars. Not sure about the rest of the city vehicles (there’s MANY of them).

But she noted that the gas at this Jersey City station was $2.65 per gallon for regular grade fuel. By comparison, the Hess station uptown was only $2.49 per gallon (as of 2:30pm yesterday).

That’s a 6-7% difference in price.

This is taxpayer money they’re spending for fuel. I am not privy for what “concessions” may be made for having a “corporate” account with a gas station, but just as the city has over a dozen bank accounts to “get the most favorable rates”, why doesn’t the city also go to the gas station with the lowest cost?

Additionally, the reader had mentioned with 90% certainty, that the city gets a portion of the sales tax proceeds that Hoboken businesses generate. Wouldn’t it make sense to use a HOBOKEN gas station?

In the long run, this may not add up to much. But in my “ball park” (and likely way off base) estimate, I used 100 vehicles, and 60 gallons a week. At that differential, it would mean a $50,000 annual savings for the city. Hey, that could pay my salary if I became their “Technical Consultant”… By god, I’m sure the websites would be more progressive at least!

Why the disparity between the “bank accounts” and the “gas station choices”? Is it because there’s DUNKIN’ DONUTS at the Exxons!?!?

8/31/2007 Update:

Wearing all the hats at Hoboken411 isn’t always too easy. One of the problems I run into, is trying to make the site compatible with as many browsers as I can. This isn’t always possible, and I have to occasionally make sacrifices for the small % of people that use browsers that I cannot seem to figure out what’s wrong with them.

Browser “preference” is very weird. Not sure about the rest of you, but I take this stuff seriously. My assumption is most people don’t care, and just want to surf the web.

A quick look at the statistics shows, that not much has changed since I checked in September of 2006!

The current breakdown (as of 8/30/2007) is as follows:

Browsers:

• 73% (down 3 points) of you use IE. (of that percentage - 68% on IE6, 31% on IE7)
• 19.5% (up 1.5 points) of you use Firefox.
• 6.5% use Safari.

OS:

• 89% (down 4 points) are on Windows.
• 10% (up 5 points) on Mac.

I know some of my re-formatting lately has caused some problems. In the process, I stumbled across the new Apple Safari 3 Public Beta. It’s available for both Mac and Windows. It claims to be the fastest browser available.

I downloaded the Microsoft version, and I have to say it’s very NICE! Worked perfectly right “out of the box”. 411 looked perfect. It also has that “font smoothing” that makes the lettering easier to read. It has some cool features like “text box resizing”, which works great on the comment box here on 411. You can expand it to show your whole comment. Security features as well, such as pop-up blocking. I’ll play with it over the next few days to see if there are any significant shortcomings (one I could find was that the search box above didn’t work).

It may still have some issues looking at older, legacy sites, but Hoboken411 worked almost perfectly. If you’re feeling daring, why not download it and give it a shot? Let me know what your opinions are.

It’s time to break free from IE6!

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A mini “leaving early / many people are gone” pre-holiday quiz today.

It’s been a while since 411 published the wacky “where is this in Hoboken?” photo quiz (yes, I’ve been slacking on the fun stuff), so today I’ll post a condensed version with only two pictures to guess where they were taken.

Photo 1:

Photo 2:

On 6th Street between Washington and Bloomfield, there is a car on fire.

Overheard on the live police scanner, this was called in as “paper on the street on fire, engulfing a tire of a parked car”…

I recall it being a late model Honda (I was at the dog park as I overheard this), and the owner was a female living at 705 Bloomfield Street. The HPD tried notifying the owner, by knocking on the door and exterior windows with no response. They assumed the owner is not home

HFD is en route to extinguish this (now totaled) vehicle - “interior now on fire”.

How the heck does that happen?

According to a reader who was listening to the live police scanner (yep, I sometimes forget it…), she indicated that East LA was having some issues with their liquor license. This happened a couple minutes past 7pm tonight.

She said:

“In case you’re not listening to the scanner.. East LA’s ABC license is expired and the cops are trying to figure out whether they should shut it down or not.
Interesting political consequences me thinks.”

Then followed up a few minutes later with:

“they figured it out - don’t shut the bar down, just advise that person that they need to renew the license. I wonder if the same treatment would be given to all local establishments.”

According to the NJ State ABC, licenses have to be renewed annually effective July 1st. And the repercussions for not renewing are as follows:

“If, for some reason the local renewal process is delayed so that a license renewal is not approved by municipal resolution by July 1st, all alcoholic beverage activity on the licensed premises must cease unless the licensee has filed the renewal application, paid the applicable fees and applies to and has issued by the Division of A.B.C. an “Ad Interim” Permit.”

Hoboken City Code doesn’t reference anything specific to revocation, but rather cites the NJ ABC.

I can’t remember off the top of my head, but can anyone recall if any other bar in town has been shut down (even temporarily) for not having a up to date liquor license?

Is East LA operating illegally?

8/30/2007:

We all have our favorite Hoboken places for one reason or another. I stumbled across someone on the Chowhound.com message boards asking for a specific recommendation.

Since that doesn’t seem to have a good concentration of Hoboken people “in the know” (like on Hoboken411), what would you tell him?

That One Restaurant in Hoboken
“I will be in Hoboken in the next couple of weeks (week night) and would like to have dinner there. I would like to know that one place you would recommend, and why.

Two requirements are: the place must have a liquor license and must take reservations. I don’t want to be cooling my heels for an hour or more, thus making for a very late arrival home.”

The two responses he received so far were:

Amanda’s on Washington Ave. - they have an “early bird” special that is quite reasonable and French food that is good. I think they have a bar but can’t quite remember and we have not been there for a couple of years so I would call ahead.

And:

I work in Hoboken, so I do lunches at these places. Teak on the Hudson isn’t bad. The location is really pretty. Lots of sushi and some other specialities. Brass Rail is overrated. It’s Greek to Me is OK, so so really. I really like the Karma Cafe, which is an Indian buffet and probably not what you are looking for. Grimaldi’s Pizza is worth the trip, even tho you said no Italian. Delish.

Let’s show them what we can advise… because with bad advice, he’ll end up hating Hoboken!

8/30/2007:

Continuing this thread started back in September of last year, a new reader “Seamus” was interested to hear about the various sports bars in Hoboken. Now’s a better time than ever to start this up again. With College Football starting today, and NFL kicks off next Thursday. Any new spots popping up?

I know we have the Steelers fans over at Texas Arizona, and the Philly fans over at Mulligans, and I think Dallas had a club somewhere. This, on top of the local Giants and Jets games. Anywhere other noteworthy places to “down” some beers?

411 reader “Sullyx” does his scouting report and notes:

Football season is around the corner and I think we need to do a scouting of the best sports bar in town. There’s been a lot of changes to some places

Reader “Joe B.” also asked about the NFL Network too:

“Do you have a list of bars in Hoboken that carry the NFL network. We tried Black Bear and they didn’t have it, which was surprising and then ended up at Texas Arizona. Any others?”

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