Pizzeria

Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson announced yesterday the arrest of a suspect in the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old East Oak Lane youth Sunday night outside a North Philadelphia pizza shop. The victim was Qa'id Staten, son of Laborers Local 332 leader Samuel Staten, a well-known union leader and an official in Gov. Rendell's transition team. The teen was a high school senior and had been offered a scholarship to Howard University. "It has nothing to do with Rendell's transition team, but I know the father personally," Johnson said at an afternoon news conference outside headquarters, explaining why he was involved in the case.

A Hunting Park man and a Juniata Park teen will stand trial on charges of attempted murder in a Feb. 19 gunfight that seriously wounded a pizza-shop owner. A Philadelphia police officer fatally shot the shop owner's son after the young man emerged from the business with a semiautomatic rifle. George Parsalidis, 52, the owner of George's Original Pizza Shop at M and Lycoming Streets in Juniata Park, testified yesterday that Victor Enriques, 25, demanded to know whose truck was parked outside because he said he wanted to buy it. Parsalidis said that he refused to leave his business to bring Enriques to the truck owner and that the pair exchanged curses.

A 13-year-old boy using a cell phone foiled a holdup at a Mount Airy pizza shop that led to a wild shoot-out last night between cops and a robbery suspect. When the smoke cleared, the suspect and an employee of the pizzeria, on Stenton Avenue near Barringer Street, each suffered three gunshot wounds, police said. Both were taken to Albert Einstein Medical Center, where the suspect was listed in critical condition and the pizzeria employee in guarded condition, police said.

Tiarike Hodges was only 15 when he went gunning for two men he accused of selling drugs outside his grandmother's house two years ago, said the prosecutor. When he located the two, he rounded up at least two friends and shot and killed them, said Assistant District Attorney Ann Ponterio. The prosecutor said Hodges murdered Keith Fields, 21, and James Elliot, 18, inside a pizzeria at 60th Street and Cedar Avenue in West Philadelphia on Feb. 28, 1998. He used an assault rifle.

Nabil Jomli has had a varied professional life. He trained as an engineer in his native Tunisia, yet became a physical education teacher there. Then, after two years as a front desk clerk in a London hotel, he came to Philadelphia in 1997. The next year he opened a halal butcher shop in the Italian Market. The butcher shop evolved into a Mediterranean take-out restaurant and, most recently, into a pizzeria with a sprinkling of Mediterranean dishes on the menu. However, one thing has been constant since Jomli, 33, opened his first business on 9th Street: savory, slightly spicy merguez sausage.

A 22-year-old Washington Township man has been charged with disorderly conduct on accusations that he videotaped children as they played in a popular pizzeria and arcade. Jason Michael Kammerer was arrested Wednesday at the Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in the Court at Deptford strip mall after an off-duty police chief saw a man following little girls in the play room and videotaping them as they climbed the equipment, police said. "I saw him walking up very, very close to kids and videotaping," Collingswood Police Chief Thomas Garrity Jr. said.

Three political newcomers have set out to challenge the Republican Party's dominance in the township, campaigning on the idea that no place should be a one-party town. The trio, all of whom work in pizza restaurants and say they are lifelong residents of Upper Darby, have won places on the Nov. 2 ballot under the banner of the Equality and Fairness Party. One is running for mayor and two for the Township Council. Five of the 11 council seats are on the ballot this fall. All 11 Township Council seats, as well as that of mayor, are held by Republicans and have been for years.

Two men robbed Bertucci's Pizzeria on Route 73 at gunpoint as it was closing early Sunday morning, forcing an employee into a walk-in refrigerator as they made off with the cash, police said yesterday. No one was injured, authorities said, and assistant manager Ricardo Moore managed to push himself out of the refrigerator after a few minutes and call the police. The restaurant was robbed in July in a similar manner, said Sgt. Frank Locantore of the Evesham Police Department, which covers Marlton.

A Baltimore man was charged with vehicular homicide after the car he was driving crashed through the window of a Lehigh County pizzeria Friday, killing the shop owner's 2-year-old daughter and critically injuring a 7-year-old girl, authorities said. Richard Vanaski, 46, ran off but turned himself in to Fountain Hill police yesterday, 12 hours after the accident, authorities said. Vanaski, who also was charged with fleeing an accident involving death, was arraigned by a Lehigh County district justice and was held at the county prison on $500,000 bail.

The doughnuts ceased dunking several years ago, leaving a hole near the corner of Route 130 and Charleston Road. But as Paul Colombo passed the empty Dunkin' Donuts store each day - its still-intact signs hawking pastries - his thoughts turned to dough. And late last month, he turned the store into Paul's Pizza Place. "This spot was in my heart," said the 22-year-old Cinnaminson resident, who also recently took over management of his family's pizza shop in Magnolia. "I don't mess around here," said Colombo, who prides himself on service and on the consistency of Paul's buffalo wings, cheesesteaks and hoagies.