Nuisance

As state Rep. Andrew Carn prepared to tell City Council members yesterday about his fight against nuisance bars, his Republican opponent deftly executed a political drive-by shooting. Waving a blowup of pages allegedly from Carn's campaign-contributors report, Michael Duncan wanted to know how Carn could be leading a fight against "stop & go" delis while taking about $8,000 from a host of Korean- American deli owners. Committee Chairman Michael Nutter ordered Duncan, 38, removed from Council chambers, and the candidate left under his own steam.

A beer-selling convenience store that neighbors said was a public nuisance because it attracted drug dealers and drunk and disorderly persons was ordered closed by a Common Pleas Court judge yesterday. Judge Ethan Allen Doty, after a hearing on a lawsuit filed by residents and the District Attorney's Office, ordered Sang K. Bae, the owner of Ogontz Hoagie City, to stop selling beer and sandwiches and to discontinue all other operations until a final hearing. "We're elated!"

The two-bedroom twin house in the 4100 block of Rhawn Street sits empty, silent and boarded up. "It looks 100 percent better than it has in 15 years," Peg Gronendahl, who lives next door, said on Monday. Joyce Dence, two doors down, added, "It's boarded up. That's a shame. But at least we don't have to worry anymore. " The women and their Holmesburg neighbors are delighted that finally, after more than a decade of complaints to elected officials and city agencies, the house has been cleaned and sealed by city crews.

Dear Harry: You recently had a column on nuisance calls at dinnertime. Some companies have that problem solved. I have a phone with a feature called "reject. " When I receive a call, I always look at my caller ID. If it's a nuisance call or a solicitation call, I hit my reject button. That not only cancels the call, but prevents future calls from that number from even ringing on my phone permanently. By now, we get almost no such calls. I guess we have rejected almost all those who would bother us. What Harry says: What a great feature!

Smokey Joe's Bar in Wayne has become a heated issue at the Radnor Township commissioners' meetings. Residents who live near the popular college hangout, at 212 E. Lancaster Ave., continuously have asked the commissioners to take action against the proprietor for disturbances and public urination that they blame on the bar's patrons. At the commissioners' meeting Monday night, a resident produced two color photographs to support his complaints. Sam Candelora gave the commissioners the photographs that showed two young men urinating against his Louella Television Co. shop at 11 Louella Drive, which is a half-block from the tavern.

City Councilman James J. Tayoun - co-owner of a South Philadelphia building plagued by rats, junkies, code violations, overdue taxes and angry neighbors - has decided to get out of the real estate business. So Tayoun, recently fined $2,500 for failing to appear at a hearing on a citation declaring the vacant building a public nuisance, is negotiating to sell the property. Tayoun and his business partner, Peter DeFeo, have not paid the fine, imposed July 3 by Municipal Judge Thomas McCormick, and also owe more than $26,000 in unpaid property taxes and water bills.

The district attorney's office, working with a city inter-agency task force, has closed a West Philadelphia stop 'n' go deli, citing "numerous violations" of the city code. The action was taken Friday against the Chestnut Street Deli, of Farragut Street near Sansom in West Philadelphia, after it was the target of more than a dozen neighborhood complaints, said Carl Anderson, assistant district attorney with the public nuisance task force and the narcotics enforcement division. Anderson said residents complained about nuisances and illegal conduct that had taken place at or near the business.

Strip joints. Stop 'n' go beer delis. Pawn shops. Check-cashing agencies. For weeks, the agenda at the Board of Zoning Adjustment has become more crowded with challenges to these businesses. It's no accident. The city Department of Licenses and Inspections, partly in response to pressure from civic and neighborhood groups, has gotten more interested in them. It's responding to nuisance bars and citizens' complaints - and not because of any underlying philosophy, said Bennett Levin, L&I commissioner.

Almost a week after a brawl left one person dead and at least 11 people injured at the Club Metropolis in the Woodbine Inn, police signed a complaint yesterday against the owners of the inn, charging them with maintaining a nuisance. The fight began in the club's bar and spilled out into the parking lot, leading to stabbings, shootings, and the death of a Camden man early Friday, police said. Among those injured were a paramedic and a Pennsauken police officer. Township officials said the brawl was just the latest violent incident at the Route 73 establishment during the last year.

Cell phones are a danger while driving a car. Something drastic has to be done soon. People on cell phones in stores and restaurants are a nuisance. Nobody wants to listen to them pretending to be big deals. This is getting out of hand. LARRY LIVENGOOD, Drexel Hill

By day, Watusi Pub II is an unassuming, dilapidated property at 45th and Locust. By night, residents say, it's a full-fledged nuisance bar. Several neighbors told us the music blasts until after 2 a.m. They said that outside the bar, rowdy patrons scream at each other or into their phones. Basel Syrawan, who lives next door to the bar, said he's learned to deal with the noise. He puts on some music and tries to drown out the pulsing bass. But yeah, he said, it's a problem.

Gene Atwell had his reasons for replacing his turf grass with wildflowers. As an American Airlines pilot who's away from home a lot, he figured a meadow might need less maintenance than a lawn. It also has a smaller carbon footprint, which appeals to a guy who flies to Europe and South America for a living. "And wildflowers are just really, really beautiful," he says. But Atwell's neighbors in Doylestown Crossing, an upscale development with traditional landscaping, complained to Doylestown Township.

It is now called the Venue Sports Bar & Grill, and police say that for some time it has been one of the most notorious venues in Upper Darby Township. At 2:40 a.m. Sunday, a 23-year-old Philadelphia man was shot and killed with a "high-powered weapon" outside the Delaware County bar by a man who had been thrown out of the club, police said. It is believed that the assailant had been involved in a quarrel with the victim, Randy Campbell, of the 700 block of North 66th Street, in the Venue's bathroom, said Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.

Winter after winter, it's the same cat-and-mouse game. The geese swoop down into Roger Kumpel's field of freshly planted wheat and rye, and Kumpel and his family dash out to try to scare them off before they decimate the crop. "If you don't do that, within a few weeks, the fields that were green are nothing but dirt," said Kumpel, who farms 500 acres in Southampton, Burlington County. "We run down. They fly from one end of the field to the other. And then to the neighbors'. It's wearing us out. " Canada geese are a long-standing problem in the Philadelphia region, the bane of many an office park manager, landscaper, or anyone who's had the misfortune of stepping onto an athletic field without checking the grass for droppings.

T&T Lounge from sun-up to shutdown: Sept. 2: The bar, at 4691 Hawthorne St., becomes T&T Lounge. Feb. 19: Former Frankford High football star Christopher Spence, 20, is fatally shot inside. Feb. 21: More than 100 of Spence's family and friends gather outside to call for its closure. The bar closes temporarily as Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez's office works with the District Attorney's Public Nuisance Task Force and the city to shut the bar down immediately.

PAST A SEA of empty 40-ounce beer bottles that litter a neighboring lot, patrons enter the dimly lit T&J's Lounge in East Germantown through a broken glass door lined with duct tape. On a recent evening, a crowd of mostly men perched themselves atop lopsided bar stools with torn cushions and shot the breeze. "This is where we come after work to converse and kick it," said Winday Dawson, 40, an electrician who lives in the area. But some nearby residents say that the longtime neighborhood hangout - the scene of a homicide in December - has become a big-time problem.

Dear Harry: You recently had a column on nuisance calls at dinnertime. Some companies have that problem solved. I have a phone with a feature called "reject. " When I receive a call, I always look at my caller ID. If it's a nuisance call or a solicitation call, I hit my reject button. That not only cancels the call, but prevents future calls from that number from even ringing on my phone permanently. By now, we get almost no such calls. I guess we have rejected almost all those who would bother us. What Harry says: What a great feature!

City Howl is a Web site that allows citizens to post their raves or rants about city services. THE PROBLEM: Back in March, law-enforcement officials raided a restaurant in Northeast Philadelphia that many in the neighborhood suspected was being used to sell drugs. A few weeks later, community members were pleased to see that the establishment had been shut down and the door padlocked. Their problems were just beginning, however. "They locked everything down the week after St. Patrick's Day," said R. Dennis Roddy, a local resident and community activist.

IT'S BAD enough hearing my own phone ring these days, because it's usually not good news. But I shouldn't have to be answering the phone every time there's a ring in the background of a TV show. With the development of good sound, the TV rings really match home phones. (C'mon, I know you too have tried to answer a phone ring that was really on TV.) With that annoyance, plus all the news tickers, network logos and name IDs on my TV screen, I sure wouldn't mind having another button on one of my six remotes to eliminate it all somehow.