Baseball Bat Purchase Turns Into Near-Riot

It’s not just race riots that are in our impending future. No, yesterday there was nearly a riot in a shopping center in Jersey thanks to your friend and mine, the Great Ides of April Nor’easter of 2007.

The incident began after flooding closed Route 1, sending drivers to a street which the Nassau Park Shopping Center empties out onto. Naturally, traffic was backed up, and the Trenton Times does a great job of getting quotes from enraged drivers who just wanted to purchase some pogs or whatever.

• “I don’t know quite what the trouble is,” Tom Quigley of Hopewell said as he and his son, Dylan, sat in their pickup truck stopped in traffic. “We just came to get a new (baseball) bat…. It’s as if someone playing with a model train set down in the basement moved all the tracks around without telling the conductor,” Quigley said, trying to explain the motorized chaos surrounding him.
• “This is just crazy. I’m getting sick sitting here. I started out at Wal-Mart and now I’m here. It’s been two and a half hours and this is how far I’ve gotten,” one woman, who declined to give her name, said as her car idled near the Best Buy store, only a few hundred feet from where her journey home had begun.
• A man traveling a few vehicles behind her described the situation with a string of expletives, then proceeded to give his analysis of the problem. “Half the people out here are idiots. No one out knows how to take turns. Everyone’s out for themself and no one’s getting anywhere. Take this woman — she’s stayed on that pickup’s bumper and hasn’t let anyone in,” he said, pointing to the sport utility vehicle directly in front of him. He did not give his name.

Hm. The reporter should have introduced Tom to that expletive-laden man. Tom could have lent Cursey McGee his bat to smash that SUV to bits. And that would have made that Wal-Mart shopper happier, too. It’s a win for everyone involved!

Highway closure traps shoppers [Trenton Times]

Leftovers: Nude Protest Somehow Awful

• There was a nude protest in front of the Burberry store today by PETA. As intrepid quizmaster Johnny Goodtimes shows in the photograph at right, though, it was the worst nude protest ever, not even including any nudity. Those girls must be cold, though. Somebody throw a bear rug over them to keep them warm, or something. [Johnny Goodtimes]

• We Americans love our crap, but apparently we have a limit! The Inquirer’s Madhusmita Bora reports today that business is extremely slow for those who opened carts and kiosks at malls for the holidays. Your pre-paid phone cards and cheap jewelry just don’t have the same pull they used to. [Inquirer]

• The Flyers made another trade today, sending a draft pick and a player you’ve never heard of for another player you don’t know. I don’t know about you, but I’m prepping for a Stanley Cup parade already. [The Phanatic]

• Premarital sex is normal. Thank God. Unless he’s pissed. Then I don’t know what to think. [AP/CNN.com]

Superairline Would Make PHL Service Worse, Somehow

This morning US Airways offered to buy Delta Airlines when it emerges from bankruptcy in a deal the company valued at $8 billion. It’s a hostile takeover attempt, which sounds a lot more fun than it really is.

What does this mean for you, the possible airline passenger? Not much, unless you’re planning to travel internationally. Delta’s hub is JFK Airport, while US Airways’ is our own PHL. Currently, the two companies compete for, say, American passengers who are looking to fly on nonstop transatlantic flights. If there’s no more competition, then… well:

If the merger occurs by the second quarter of 2007, which US Airways said it would like to do, some overlapping service to smaller European cities could be cut.

Take a guess which airport they’re going to cut service from.

US Airways bids $8B for Delta; Phila. flights could be affected [Inquirer]

Everything must go (including the customers)

For a long while, perhaps the only Krispy Kreme north of the Mason-Dixon Line was just outside of Philadelphia on U.S. Route 1 in Bensalem. It closed its doors years ago, but the Southern doughnut franchise eventually expanded into Philadelphia, promising 16 stores when it said it was coming into town in 2001. The Daily News wrote about 100 advertisements feature stories about the company, people lined up at 5 a.m. at the Roosevelt Mall location and Krispy Kreme was a sensation.

Fast forward to 2005, and all Krispy Kreme locations in Philadelphia have been closed. The company’s been in a dire financial situation for a while now, and the subsidiary that runs the Philly stores just filed for Chapter 11, citing $24.1 million in debts.

Usually when stores close, though, they have going out of business sales or they close during off hours. Yesterday, the Krispy Kreme location on Cottman Avenue closed while customers were waiting in line to buy doughnuts. Writes the Philadelphia Business Journal:

But a customer, Shanti Bacari of Philadelphia, said she was at one of the locations, 2327 Cottman Ave. in Northeast Philadelphia, at about 12:30 p.m. Monday when it closed abruptly.

About a dozen customers were trying to get inside and people waiting in the drive-thru line were turned away, she said.

Inside, customers continued to make purchases as it appeared a group of employees were holding a meeting, said Bacari, who was among those turned away.

With corporate strategy like this, somehow I’m not surprised Krispy Kreme’s Philly subsidiary has $24 million in debt.

Krispy Kreme down to zero Philadelphia stores [PBJ]