Free Republic

Don’s Pizza King in Belmar has closed after 54 years in business. The Asbury Park Press reported the beloved pizza place was shuttering following a Sept. 5 Facebook post in which the restaurant cited staffing shortages. It was owned by Don Iglay, known to some locals as “The King.” “At a minimum, the King needs a break,” the post read. “Like everyone he’s been short-staffed all summer to the point where he is out waiting on people and cooking the pizza!” Whether the restaurant, located at 811 Main St., would be closed permanently or temporarily was not specified in the...

The mayor of this small beach town halted all incoming traffic from a major roadway for several hours on Sunday after it became too jammed with tourists. Mayor Matt Doherty announced in a tweet shortly after 3 p.m. that all traffic into Belmar from Route 35 would be shut down immediately. He said in the tweet that the town had “reached its capacity.” […] The 1.6 square mile beach town has an estimated population of approximately 6,000 people, but that number swells to more than 60,000 in the summer. He said a “perfect storm of good things” led to an...

Federal auditors are questioning more than $500,000 in Hurricane Sandy debris removal costs in Belmar, saying the town awarded two contracts that did not comply with federal rules and lacked paperwork to support other expenses. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General today released its findings about the hard-hit Monmouth County borough, marking the third time a federal audit of a Jersey Shore town’s debris removal work following the storm has been made public. The way two contractors charged for cleanup work accounted for more than half of the expenses flagged in Belmar’s audit. Federal auditors said Belmar...

SNIPPET: "Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg is among four people who have been arrested on suspicion of Syria-related terrorism offences, police have said. Mr Begg, 45, who was held by the US authorities for almost three years, was arrested earlier with two other men and a woman in the West Midlands. He was detained on suspicion of attending a terrorist training camp and facilitating terrorism overseas." SNIPPET: "Mr Begg was arrested in Hall Green in Birmingham. The other people arrested - a 36-year-old man from Shirley, a 44-year-old woman and her son, 20, both from Sparkhill - are being...

BELMAR, N.J. -- Keep the beer pong and games of quarters inside. In the ongoing tussle between summer renters and year-round residents of this seaside community, the borough council has banned outdoor games involving alcohol. The so-called "Beer Pong" ordinance, which goes into effect Aug. 17, prohibits alcohol-related games or contests on porches, decks, lawns, front and side yards, or anywhere that can be viewed by the public and neighbors. Fines begin at $100 for a first offense. Adopted last week, the regulation takes its name from a drinking game in which players bounce pingpong balls into cups of beer,...

January 28, 2005 Detention Pentagon agreed deal to monitor freed four By Sean O’Neill, Richard Ford and Nicola Woolcock FRIENDS and relatives of the four Britons freed from Guantanamo Bay this week could also face intensive police monitoring, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said last night. People sharing an address with any of the four could be denied access to the telephone or internet and have to undergo body searches. Elaborating on powers announced by the Government this week, Mr Clarke said: “I accept that an individual is different to a family but where there is an individual deemed to...

The four British men who returned home from Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday have been released without charge by police. Moazzam Begg, Martin Mubanga, Feroz Abbasi and Richard Belmar were due to leave Paddington Green police station on Wednesday night, Scotland Yard said. They had been questioned by anti-terrorist officers in the UK after being held at the camp in Cuba for three years. The men had been accused by the US of having links to al-Qaeda. Family reunion They are now being reunited with their families at a location of their choice, police said. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Shortly...