Seaside Heights cashing in on 'Jersey Shore'

At the Beachcomber Bar and Grill, the bar stool where Snooki got hit hard by a drunk customer last year became so famous, the owners had to put it in storage. Still, they come, bartender Tatiana Mishanina said, just to say they were there.

"Hey, it brings business and that's what this town needs," she said.

So why would anyone lob a grenade at Seaside Heights for getting in the hot tub with Snooki and crew? Why bash any tourists - Gov. Chris Christie himself decried the eight cast members as "a bunch of New Yorkers" - when tourism is the Shore's lifeline?

"This town is 90 percent tourists," Camera said. "We would die without tourists from New York."

As an Italian, Cheryl Squadrito said "Jersey Shore" doesn't put her nationality in the best light, but she also owns a Haddonfield-based public-relations firm and thinks Seaside is taking the right approach, regardless of what Christie says.

"I don't think Snooki and The Situation are bad for New Jersey," Squadrito said. "If I were representing Seaside, I would have some fun with this."

Not everyone agrees.

Jersey native and Italian-American Joe Piscopo, one-time cast member of "Saturday Night Live," thinks Snooki and company - and New Jersey - are being exploited by MTV "so [parent company] Viacom can up their stock price."

"To use the name of the great Jersey Shore, and make it a forced-drama reality series just for shock value, should be against the law!" Piscopo said, via e-mail. "It is defamation of our great state and its people. A lot of the times, when you're young, you're stupid. And that's what happening with the poor kids at the 'Jersey Shore' show."

Ask Gwen Hall, an employee at a jewelry store yards from the "Jersey Shore" house on the boardwalk, about the show and her eyes roll.

"It makes Seaside look horrible," she said.

Jen Miller, a freelance writer and author of The Jersey Shore: Atlantic City to Cape May, said she doesn't blame Seaside for "capitalizing in a recession" but does blame MTV for turning Snooki and her ilk into unofficial mascots for the entire coast.

"The name of the show should be different," she said. "They should have called it 'Seaside Heights.' "

Each Shore town is a different place with a unique character, Miller emphasized, and while Ronnie or Pauly D might be at home in Seaside or Belmar, they'd be out of place "down the Shore" in Sea Isle City or North Wildwood.

"Could you imagine them in Cape May?" Miller said.

Someday, MTV will clear out of Seaside, Miller said, but the stain of "Jersey Shore" will stick around for years.

"It's already getting annoying," she said. "I'm going to throw a party when they're all either bankrupt or in porn."