Valet Parking

I want you to sue your school. And the reason I want you to sue them is because you are not adequately prepared for the outside world. First of all, I don't care what you majored in, did you have a course in valet parking? No! And you should because that's probably going to be your first job. What about handing out papers downtown? What about selling mustard pretzels? None of you are prepared for that. Bill Cosby Joking at Temple's May commencement

In this age of convenience, local restaurant and salon patrons shouldn't get too used to slipping their car keys and a $5 bill to crisply-dressed teenage valets. At least not in Newtown Borough. Worried that too many businesses may want to rope off street parking spaces for valet drive-ups in this congested little town, council members may vote next month to ban valet parking altogether. "If the whole town decided that they each wanted to take space for valet parking . . . where do you draw the line?"

Shop owners in historic Newtown Borough want to try a quick and novel fix for a generation-old problem by offering valet parking on its bustling main street in Bucks County. "I'm not aware of any other town that offers valet parking. It's time to capitalize on it," David Witchell, owner of a salon and spa on State Street and one of two merchants pushing the idea, said last week. "If shoppers know they can pull up and get a map of the business district, business cards and coupons, they'll come.

West Chester Borough Council President Ray Ott thinks one restaurant owner may have found an inexpensive way to improve the borough's parking troubles. Valet parking. The Borough Council recently approved the valet parking plan for Clemente's Ristorante on East Gay Street. The restaurant's owners hope the service will attract more customers. Borough officials see it as a way to improve parking availability at no cost to taxpayers. "I'm excited about this," Ott said. "It will be interesting to monitor.

A downtown department store, plagued by feelings of loneliness, is thinking about offering "valet parking" to its customers. Another sign of a declining civilization. Valet parking, as you probably know, is where you drive right up to where you're going and an attendant takes your car, then brings it back when you're ready to go home. It saves you walking two blocks, sometimes three. Is that wimpy, or what? Americans like to think of themselves as hardy people, but I don't know why. They're overweight, short of breath and working to stay that way. Ask them to walk three blocks and they lie down and play dead.

Say what you want about hard times; it still wasn't easy finding a spot in the parking lot of Plymouth Meeting Mall yesterday. You had to act like a tank commander and then be ready to bundle up your infantry for the long trek to the stores. Unless, that is, you indulged in the mall's brand-new holiday valet parking service. For $2, valet customers bathed in a luxury associated with fine hotels, dropping off their cars near the entrance and forgetting about them. "It was cheap, it was close, and it saved aggravation," said Pat Fenimore of Blue Bell, who was meeting her husband at the mall.

There will be no valet parking on quaint and busy State Street, if the Borough Council has its way. Though only one popular restaurant now offers valet parking in the borough, the council is concerned about a trend that could leave many motorists scrambling for a parking spot. An ordinance banning valet parking is under consideration and will provide for a $15 fine. "We felt it was better to address it before it got too far out of hand," council president Marcia Scull said yesterday.

The cover was five dollars. Shots were a buck, and so were domestic beers such as Miller Genuine Draft and Bud Light. Imports such as Corona (with a decorative lime) cost $2. Most drinkers would call it a bargain. But with 17- and 18-year-old patrons, police called it a speakeasy. Teenagers who went regularly to parties at the makeshift bar in a borrowed local barn on Styer Road say the scene they saw differed, in some ways substantially, from the version offered by police and prosecutors.

Vicky and Jim Johnson had choices yesterday afternoon when they pulled up at 30th Street Station, theater tickets in hand, to catch their train to Manhattan. The handsomely dressed pair from Newtown Square could have left their Chrysler in the parking lot across the street from the station, or in the underground garage. Then they noticed the sign marked "valet parking" and decided, given the biting cold and their planned return in the wee hours of the morning, to splurge. "We'll be warm when we get back," said Vicky Johnson, pulling her winter coat close.

The flow of shoppers was barely a trickle at the Suburban Square shopping center in Ardmore on a rather wet Tuesday last week. Those who did come out in the rain had to navigate a maze of plywood marking major construction work in the central courtyard of the Main Line shopping landmark. And they found some of the once-popular stores in the outdoor mall - such as Talbots and Coach - closed. "Right now business is shot" because of the construction, said Tersita Williams, a sales clerk at Victoria's Secret.

Shop owners in historic Newtown Borough want to try a quick and novel fix for a generation-old problem by offering valet parking on its bustling main street in Bucks County. "I'm not aware of any other town that offers valet parking. It's time to capitalize on it," David Witchell, owner of a salon and spa on State Street and one of two merchants pushing the idea, said last week. "If shoppers know they can pull up and get a map of the business district, business cards and coupons, they'll come.

Valet parking at restaurants and hotels is considered a sign of exclusivity. But Garth Weldon, owner of the Prime Rib steak house in the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel, says, "This is ridiculous. " Weldon's is one of more than four dozen businesses now receiving their annual bills from the Philadelphia Parking Authority for valet zones. The fee in Center City, University City, and along Delaware Avenue, which in many cases last year was $250 per 20 feet of curb space, is now $2,500 - 10 times as much.

Music The West Oak Lane Jazz and Arts Festival. This year, the festival offers an old-school R&B and jazz lineup, with 1970s and '80s hit-maker Chaka Khan topping the bill Sunday night. On Saturday afternoon on the main stage on Ogontz Avenue, there's a five-man soul-and-jazz marathon with Howard Hewett, Freddie Jackson, Philadelphia bassist Gerald Veasley, Peabo Bryson, and Jeffrey Osborne. Other attractions of note: multiple Grammy-winning Eddie Palmieri and his Salsa Orchestra and well-traveled Philly jazzman Christian McBride and his band, Inside Straight (who are playing back-to-back on opposite stages Sunday afternoon)

One gunpoint robbery in the parking lot at SugarHouse Casino hardly sets a pattern, but it certainly won't be good for business if the casino develops a reputation as a place where patrons are fleeced even before they reach the slot machines. The holdup of three women who had just parked their car and were headed to the casino a week ago could have ended in tragedy, since both muggers were armed. One woman was struck in the head with a pistol, while the thieves grabbed two purses before fleeing the casino parking lot in a stolen car, police said.

THERE ARE DAYS when the world is dangerously insane (bad people doing bad things), and other days when it's just kooky (Tattle types having bad ideas). Today, April 1, is one of those days. Madonna, whose acting career has produced more turkeys than Butterball, has been pitching a remake of "Casablanca," with her in the Ingrid Bergman role. Oh, it will be set in Iraq. We wish it were an April Fool's joke. And people thought that "Like a Virgin" was blasphemous. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, no stranger to over-the-top ideas, has a new one, according to Jo Piazza of the New York Daily News.

Towing the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy to Philadelphia for storage has proved to be a complex ordeal. There's only a 20-minute window each day when it can be safely eased alongside Pier 4 in South Philadelphia, where it will be stored. That's the daylight high tide, when the swift current is slack. High winds kept the big ship at sea Thursday and yesterday, with its small crew of line handlers camped out on the vast empty and cold ship. The Kennedy was scheduled to enter the Delaware Bay at 9 last night and begin a slow 18-hour trek to Philadelphia.

Talk about stealing the lunch money. A former Southeast Delco School District food-service manager was charged yesterday with pocketing $287,361.64 in cafeteria lunch receipts that she gambled away in Atlantic City. Mary Arnold, 52, of Collingdale, whose betting qualified her for a high-roller's Diamond Total Rewards card at Harrah's Casino, faces 16 counts of theft and receipt of stolen property. She surrendered to Folcroft police and the Delaware County District Attorney's Office and was released on $100,000 unsecured bail.

After four months of contentious hearings, political posturing, and behind-the-scenes deal-making, Philadelphia City Council yesterday passed a $3.5 billion city budget by a lopsided vote of 13-4. The final version does not include many of the controversial spending cuts sought by Mayor Street when he proposed the budget in January. In a compromise with Council members, the mayor agreed to restore the spending if Council voted to OK new taxes and fees on billboards and valet parking, which they also did yesterday.