Social Club

Coatesville police issued an arrest warrant yesterday in connection with a slaying early Sunday outside a Merchant Street social club. Keith Shelton, 24, of Coatesville, was gunned down about 2:45 a.m. after stepping from the Elks Lodge, a private, after-hours club, Coatesville Police Chief Dominick Bellizzie said. Shelton was shot twice - in the chest and in the groin - and was pronounced dead a short time later at Brandywine Hospital in Caln, where he had been taken by ambulance.

A Burlington County man has been arrested on charges of allegedly stealing $10,000 while serving as vice president of a local social club. Authorities say that Joseph Keating, 52, of the 400 block of Delview Lane, Delanco, stole the money from the Beverly Athletic Club. He was indicted by a Burlington County Grand Jury on Sept. 22, and charged with theft by deception, and misapplication of entrusted property. He was arrested Tuesday in Cape May and placed in the Burlington County Jail on bail of $2,000.

When the owner of a 69th Street social club was bound over yesterday for trial in District Court on gambling charges, the latest card was dealt in a decade-long game of War between police and small-time gaming here. Paulos Zarogiannis, 42, of the first block of Marlborough Road, was arrested after a police raid March 22 at the Pieria Club in the 300 block of South 69th Street. Four green felt-topped card tables, a slot machine and several decks of cards topped the list of confiscated items, an affidavit states.

A social club serving alcohol at the Colwyn Borough Fire Company was raided by state police Thursday night, while at the same time all 17 active volunteer firefighters resigned, citing conflicts with the department's social-club members. The Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control seized two illegal video slot machines, other gambling equipment, approximately 10 bottles of liquor purchased from outside of the state and about $2,100 in cash. Colwyn is a dry town and licenses to sell alcohol are not issued in the borough, a state official said.

Angered by a social club that residents of the township's South Media section say is a hub for crime and drug activity, a civic group urged commissioners Thursday night to take steps to ensure the area's safety. The Concerned Citizens of South Media say that the problem persists at the club, known as the South Media Citizens Club, even though police assigned an officer to patrol the neighborhood last April. Two men were arrested outside the club Feb. 6 on charges of marijuana possession, police said.

The township's Republican Party chairman, who - along with all five council members - quit the local Republican club last month over political differences, has started a group of his own. The Friends of the Mount Laurel Republican County Committee is not meant to replace the club, said Republican Chairman Fred R. Van Istendal. It's meant to be more of a social club for the township's party faithful, he said. The new group gathered March 20 for its inaugural meeting over breakfast with gubernatorial hopeful Cary Edwards.

When Maureen Maguire was a student at La Salle University, her social life revolved around her sorority and organized intramural sports. At 27, the Newtown Square resident found herself surrounded by a friendly, but more limited, circle of people at the leasing company where she worked. Weekend activities required extra planning and phone calls. The Philadelphia Sports and Social Club, formed in the spring, has filled a gap for her and about a thousand other men and women in the post-college, pre- marriage crowd, who want to meet people and keep in shape.

A controversial plan to purchase a lot occupied by a defunct social club and use it to bring several township services under one roof hit a wall of bricks last week. "Right now, it's a dead issue," said Mayor Robert Renshaw. "There's no money to pay for it. " At a special meeting Monday, the Township Committee failed to approve a $565,000 bond issue, about $250,000 of which was to help pay for the project, with the rest going toward roadwork and computer purchases. The vote was 3-1, with Richard Horton voting no and Debbie Carruthers absent.

Bill Furia, grandson of a Polish immigrant, said he would go to any lengths to save his social club. He would even learn Polish. Furia is one of nearly 200 "social" members of St. Casimir's Beneficial Association in Riverside who are engaged in a battle to preserve the 98-year- old ethnic institution from extinction. On the other side are the "beneficials," a group of about 20 trustees, some in their 90s, who have put the institution (and its liquor license) up for sale. It's a decision that has stirred up a witches' brew of acrimony and name- calling in a place that for years was a quiet, ethnic watering hole.

RIDDING THE Red Clay Creek of a cushion is Jim Jordan of the NVF Management Club, a social club of National Vulcanized Fiber, a former polluter of the creek. The company makes paper products for the abrasive sanding, electrical and computer industries. About 80 people gathered at the club on Saturday for the cleanup.

EASTON - Two Allentown men were ordered Monday to stand trial in a shootout at a social club that killed a woman and injured five other people. A Northampton County judge ruled that prosecutors had enough evidence against Rene Figueroa, 32, and Javier Rivera-Alvarado, 40, for the case to move to county court, the Easton Express-Times reported. Figueroa is charged with criminal homicide in the shooting death of Yolanda Morales, 23. Rivera-Alvarado is charged with attempted homicide and related offenses.

Upstairs at the Plays & Players Theater on Delancey Street, just outside the room housing Quig's Pub, someone has bumped into Dennis Murphy, 71, at the happy-hour food table and knocked his plate of shrimp to the floor.   Meanwhile, in the black-box theater next to the bar, behind a thick black velvet curtain, the Plays & Players company is rehearsing a wordless staccato preamble to Tom Stoppard's Travesties, with Lenin and Joyce as characters and set 100 years ago, around the same time the theater itself was born.

Like a lot of retired people, Helen E. Gwathney Carrington needed something extra to keep her busy. True, she was an accomplished hairdresser, but after her retirement from the old Strawbridge & Clothier store, she had time on her hands. It was then that a niece taught her quilting, and Helen seized on the new art form with her customary passion and devotion to detail. "A new Helen evolved," her family said. "She made the most beautiful quilts you ever wanted to see, by hand stitching.

Amber alert issued for abducted toddler * 1515 Arch St. An Amber Alert was issued yesterday for a 19-month-old Philadelphia boy who was abducted by his mother, State Police said. Kanief Dandy is black with black hair and brown eyes, 32 inches tall, and weighs 30 pounds. He was wearing black jeans and a red thermal shirt with gray sleeves when he was abducted about 4 p.m. Police said that Natia Dandy, 34, took her child during a supervised visit at the Department of Human Services offices at 1515 Arch St. She is black with brown hair, brown eyes, 5 feet 6, 170 pounds.

A Burlington County man has been arrested on charges of allegedly stealing $10,000 while serving as vice president of a local social club. Authorities say that Joseph Keating, 52, of the 400 block of Delview Lane, Delanco, stole the money from the Beverly Athletic Club. He was indicted by a Burlington County Grand Jury on Sept. 22, and charged with theft by deception, and misapplication of entrusted property. He was arrested Tuesday in Cape May and placed in the Burlington County Jail on bail of $2,000.

Sean Patrick O'Neill, 50, of Blue Bell, a vice president at Janney Montgomery Scott, died of cancer Wednesday, Sept. 28, at Abington Memorial Hospital. Since 2005, Mr. O'Neill worked for the investment firm in Blue Bell. Previously he had been with Reynolds Investment Management and PaineWebber. He never met anyone who did not count him as a special friend, and his clients and colleagues held him in high esteem, his brother Timothy said. "Sean was the ultimate professional and a wonderful resource," said H. Brad Kerr, a Janney Montgomery Scott first vice president.

NOT MANY people can say they've read the Bible from cover to cover. Melvin Lewis Sr. could. Not only did he read it, he also remembered what he read. And if you didn't believe him, you would have to be ready to be challenged on passages of Scripture. He loved to test others' knowledge of the book he loved, starting with childhood Bible classes. Melvin Lewis, one of the first African-American supervisors for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, a popular figure in his West Philadelphia neighborhood and a man famous for his dapper attire, died April 29. He would have turned 84 yesterday.

Tim Horan, co-owner of the Philadelphia Sport and Social Club, quickly got the attention of School Reform Commission members yesterday. "I would like to give the district money and lots of it, but the district won't take it," he said. Horan explained that his sports club, which he later described as a "Little League" for adults, rents gyms and fields from private schools and from the city's Recreation Department. Horan said that he has been told that the school district won't rent space to for-profit organizations, and has asked the district to change the policy.

The former manager of the Palmer Social Club, one of the city's top hip-hop nightspots, was sentenced in federal court yesterday to three years' probation for hiding money from the IRS. U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois also ordered Michael Weiss, 46, of Center City, to spend the first year of probation under house arrest with electronic monitoring and fined him $30,000. Weiss, who owns seven bars and/or restaurants in Philadelphia and San Diego, including Woody's, at 13th and Walnut streets, admitted at his plea hearing in June that he gave bogus financial statements to the Palmer's corporate accountant to prepare the club's 2004 and 2005 tax returns.

Sylvia Cohen Levin, 87, of Cherry Hill, a bookkeeper for her husband's architectural business and area hospitals, died of congestive heart failure on Saturday, Sept. 11, at her home. For several years, Mrs. Levin alternated from managing her husband's books to working as an accountant at the Philadelphia Psychiatric Center and later at Cooper University Hospital, where she enjoyed helping patients figure out their bills, her family said. A member of Mothers for Peace during the later stages of the Vietnam War, Mrs. Levin was politically engaged and never missed voting on Election Day, said her son Jeffrey A. Levin.