Parking Lot

St. Martin of Tours Roman Catholic Church scored a victory with the New Hope Zoning Hearing Board in December, when the board orally agreed to let the church operate a pay parking lot that neighbors long had opposed. But attorneys for the church have found the zoning board's recent written decision radically different from the December pronouncement and have appealed it in Bucks County Court. The board mediated a debate between the church, which wants to raise money by offering parking-strapped tourists its lot, and residents, who argue those tourists are public nuisances.

An executive order prohibiting the consumption of alcohol at tailgate parties in the JFK Stadium parking lot has been delayed while the city's Law Department works out details of the proposed restriction. Mayor Goode was to have signed the document yesterday, as part of several steps aimed at controlling crowd behavior during Eagles games at Veterans Stadium. On Tuesday, city officials, the Eagles and Ogden Allied Services Corp., which runs the concessions at the Vet, agreed to ban the sale of beer at the team's final regular-season game on Dec. 24. The ban also would cover any playoff games at the Vet, but fans who watch the games from superboxes, skyboxes and the stadium restaurant would still be able to purchase alcoholic beverages.

It may be all right for the birds, but the sight of a 6-foot, 4-inch, 175- pound man bathing nude in the Pennview Savings Association parking lot was too much for bank employees - especially when it became a daily occurrence. They called the police. Montgomery Township police caught him in the act Friday morning. He was rinsing off with a garden hose at the side of the bank. Police arrested Daniel Dean, 32, of no fixed address, at 7:15 a.m. at Pennview Savings, 706 N. Wales Rd. He was charged with open lewdness, disorderly conduct and possessing a prohibitive offensive weapon.

The Media Borough Council has approved a bid for the reconstruction of a parking lot at Galey and State Streets, but not without attracting some controversy. G. Antonini Construction Co. of Broomall was the low bidder - at $28,417 - for the new lot, which will have meters, 24 spaces and new curbing and landscaping. The present lot, which does not have meters, holds about 13 cars. Before the motion was approved by a 7-0 vote Thursday, Mayor Frank Daly asked that a council member explain whose idea it was to condemn and reconstruct the lot, and why it was necessary.

A group of residents opposed to SEPTA's proposal to build an 88-space commuter parking lot on a portion of the 18-acre Duer tract has mounted a campaign to thwart the plan. William Peck, a former township commissioner whose Lindenshade Lane home abuts the tract, said the group has begun a petition drive and hopes to collect 600 signatures in the next few weeks to persuade the Township Board of Commissioners to deny the proposal. Peck said most of his and other residents' objections focus on the partial loss of land that the township acquired in 1996 for the express purpose of preserving open space.

The Zoning Hearing Board will further study an application to demolish a house and make way for a parking lot on North State Road - a decision that pleased more than 35 residents who went to Thursday night's meeting to protest the request. Simon Oulouhojian, owner of Speedway Auto Radiator on West Chester Pike, has asked the board to grant a variance so that he can knock down a house he owns at 15 N. State Rd. to add parking. The house abuts the shop. Three variances are needed, though the primary one would grant permission to put a commercial parking lot on a lot zoned for residential use. Oulouhojian, 64, testified that the house was badly run down and that the only financially feasible action was to raze it. He said he had bought the house without looking at the inside, hoping to turn it into a duplex.

The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office yesterday filed third-degree murder charges against the man who fatally shot a 19-year-old Willow Grove man July 1 in the parking lot of an Easton Road apartment complex. The shooting was initially investigated as a possible case of self-defense. That claim was rejected, however, after two witnesses told county investigators and Upper Moreland police that James Ford, the victim, was no longer carrying a weapon - specifically, a baseball bat - when George W. Grundy shot him at the Willow Hill Apartments in Willow Grove.

In the end, Bucks County lawyer Richard Patton did go to prison. But not for long enough to satisfy the survivors of Patton's girlfriend, Heather Demou, who died in a fall from his truck during a parking-lot squabble last year. Patton, 53, a former state prosecutor, yesterday was sentenced in Bucks County Court to serve three to 23 months in the county prison. "We were instructed to sit tall as choirboys and let the justice system do its work," Demou's brother, Mike Butler, said after the sentencing.

The New Jersey Casino Control Commission has been asked to referee a multimillion-dollar real estate battle between Donald Trump and Penthouse magazine publisher Robert Guccione. The fate of the Pratt Hotel Corp.'s proposed Sands Hollywood project could hang in the balance. In a petition filed yesterday, Penthouse asked the commission to order Trump to rescind a $16 million offer he has made for a 3.8-acre parking-lot site in the heart of Atlantic City. Penthouse argued that the bid, entered in a complicated bankruptcy case pending in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, was nothing more than a "veiled attempt" to thwart the Sands Hollywood project.

Residents who made periodic trips to Tabernacle Township Committee meetings over the last two years complaining about the noise of the rock bands and rowdy patrons at Raymond's Bar will have to perk up their ears to hear the clink of forks and conversation of the dinner crowd that Raymond's now hopes to attract. "We've changed our clientele altogether," said Raymond Bakuckas, owner of Raymond's, which has dropped the "Bar" and replaced it with "Tavern and Eatery. " The restaurant has given up live music.

  Susanne Bier, the Danish director who emerged from Lars von Trier's militantly minimalist Dogma school, is hardly known for her rom-coms. Damaged war veterans, paralyzed accident victims, dark family secrets . . . not exactly a laff riot. And so, while Love Is All You Need has a certain feel-good Hollywood vibe (if the English-language remake isn't in development as we speak, then I'll eat my muesli right now), it also has breast cancer and betrayal and not-gladly-suffered fools going for it, too. The movie stars the quite wonderful Trine Dyrholm as Ida, a beautician recovering from chemotherapy and a mastectomy - and from finding her husband (Kim Bodnia)

NEW CASTLE, Del. - State police say a woman and a man were robbed while walking in the parking lot of a bank in New Castle. Police say the 34-year-old woman and 32-year-old man were on their way to the ATM at the Wells Fargo Bank on North Dupont Highway when a man confronted them from behind and demanded money. Police say the male victim was pushed to the ground, and the female victim handed over some cash. The robber fled on foot. - AP

Two police officers were injured late Friday night while breaking up a fight in the parking lot of the Sunset Tavern in Burlington Township, police said. Police arrived at 11:14 p.m. in the parking lot at 1108 Sunset Rd., where two men were fighting, authorities said. As the officers arrested Jamel Cross, 19, police said, several people interfered. The officers called for assistance from Burlington City, Willingboro, and Mount Holly police, said Burlington Township Sgt. Mike Gollnick.

A woman attacked a limousine driver at knifepoint and stole his vehicle Tuesday night in the city's Crescentville section, but was later tracked down by police using a GPS system located in the car. Around 7 p.m., the 2010 Chrysler 300 with limousine tags had arrived to pick up a taxi fare in the 700 block of Adams Avenue when a 30-year-old woman jumped into the backseat, Chief Inspector Scott Small said. The woman put a knife to the 40-year-old driver's throat and ordered him to get out of the car, Small said.

  Broad Street was a no-go. I-95 was a parking lot. And game-day traffic hadn't even started yet. On the highways in and around Philadelphia on Sunday, a traffic disaster brewed with a fiery early-morning crash on I-95 near Broad Street shutting down that section of highway for much of the morning - while the Independence Blue Cross Broad Street Run rendered that 10-mile city spine off-limits to vehicle traffic until close to noon. The accident happened about 6 a.m. on the northbound side of I-95 when a tractor-trailer hit an empty, disabled car, State Police Cpl. Gerard McShea said.

LOS ANGELES - Fire officials were dispatching a hazardous-materials team to deal with a store of highly toxic pesticides that have caught fire in a huge Southern California wildfire. Capt. Scott Dettorre said the pesticides were stored at the Laguna Farms property near the 5,000-student California State University Channel Islands campus. Dettorre said nearby residents were being warned to stay out of the smoke. The blaze erupted during morning rush hour along U.S. 101 in the Camarillo area, about 50 miles west of Los Angeles.

Authorities on Wednesday released the names of two suspected roving bandits who allegedly robbed a man of $6,000 at gunpoint in February at the Cherry Hill Mall after the victim responded to an online advertisement selling iPhones. Lance Kenney, 22, of Los Angeles, and Nathaniel Broadaway, 40, of Little Rock, met the victim at the mall on the afternoon of Feb. 3, said township Sgt. Joseph W. Vitarelli Jr. The victim was there to buy eight new iPhones offered at $540 apiece and met up with one of the men, Vitarelli said.

Investigator Lance Saunders of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office appears in a video pointing to the Ferry Avenue parking lot where Rasheeda Pegues was found shot to death in December. The killer hasn't been found. Saunders is driving an unmarked cruiser in a three-minute TV news-style video released Monday. The video is a new technique authorities are using to try to generate information about the Dec. 16 slaying. That night, shortly after 11, Pegues, 25, opened the door to her apartment in the 2000 block of Ferry and was shot multiple times.

Radnor police were searching Tuesday for a man they say is a suspect in a carjacking that targeted a couple with an 8-month-old baby in the township. Police say the couple were purchasing electronics at Micro Center at 550 E. Lancaster Ave. about 8 p.m. Monday. They were loading about $2,000 worth of purchases into their car when a man approached, asked if they needed help, and began loading packages into the car, police said. Initially, the couple thought he was an employee at Micro Center, police said.