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Category: New Jersey News

  • Avalon shut down a live band at Gully’s at 8 p.m. Now the tavern is fighting restrictions on its liquor license.

    Avalon shut down a live band at Gully’s at 8 p.m. Now the tavern is fighting restrictions on its liquor license.

    AVALON, N.J. — For Three and One singer and guitarist Gus Thompson, 25, the music died on Dune Drive shortly after 8 p.m. on Friday, July 17.

    “We noticed the police out front,” the band’s front man said in a phone interview, recalling the night at Avalon’s new bar and restaurant with a patio for live music and other events. “Our set was ending very soon, so we didn’t think much of it. The owner said we’re being shut down. He said no more music.”

    The band was scheduled to play until 10 p.m., and had finished the early set with Thompson’s original song “No Idea,” but Avalon’s restrictions on Gully’s and all other bars in town prohibit any outdoor music after 8 p.m.

    Out in the crowd, Kate Nunan was incensed. At 8:36 p.m., she posted a picture of the band breaking down its setup in the Facebook Group Seven Mile Shenanigans, and wrote, “WTH is wrong with Avalon??? Shutting down a band at 8:30 because of a noise complaint??”

    The outrage has only grown, spilling over into a July 22 council meeting, with residents expressing concern that Avalon, long a place of late nights and live music, but now increasingly a place of private clubs and multimillion-dollar houses, was in danger of losing its small businesses and essential character.

    Has Avalon become too exclusive for the people who live there?

    Gully’s has appealed the special conditions of Avalon’s liquor license to the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, saying the ban on outdoor music after 8 p.m. is “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”

    At the council meeting, locals like Merri Jones, who said she was a second-generation graduate of Avalon Elementary, stuck up for Gully’s, which replaced the Black Cactus restaurant with a restaurant touting “old school beachy vibes.” (Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan praised its “clothesline of candied bacon.“)

    The hanging candied bacon served over grits and Gully’s blooming potato on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “They’re a breath of fresh air,” she told the council, which had been cautioned by Nicole Curio, the municipal solicitor, not to respond to comments about Gully’s since the liquor license restrictions were now a legal action with the state ABC, a division of the Office of the Attorney General.

    “It’s just a couple more hours to let them make their money,” she said. “We support it. A lot of locals do as well.”

    But neighbors on the 100 block of 27th Street, which has Gully’s at one end and Wawa on the other, and regularly idling 18-wheelers making deliveries to both, pleaded their case about the noise from Gully’s, including the amplified music and games like its Monday Minnow Races announced over a loudspeaker.

    Larry Hayes said he lives 450 feet from Gully’s, but the sound is causing an “unreasonable disruptive intrusion into our quiet enjoyment of our home.” The Avalon noise ordinance restricts any amplified sound that’s audible more than 50 feet away, he noted.

    The patio at Gully’s on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “We want to be good neighbors,” said neighbor Matt Tumasz. “We love the idea that there’s a family restaurant. But when you have a five-piece band playing and blasting music, and speakers that are 15 feet in the air, it’s just a little bit out of control.”

    Gully’s owner Beth Pearce did not respond to several messages from The Inquirer.

    On Facebook, Pearce posted: “From the beginning, our goal has been simple: to create a place where neighbors, families, visitors, and friends can come together and make memories.

    “We have tremendous respect for the role of our local officials,” she wrote. “We remain committed to working collaboratively, being good neighbors, and contributing positively to our community.”

    At the council meeting, she noted that several council members had patronized Gully’s with their families (and one admitted to being a fan during the council meeting).

    “The hope is we’re going to elevate all businesses,” Pearce said. She pledged to try to “figure out what the appropriate sound level is.”

    The exterior of Gully’s on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “I think we can find something where we can thrive together,” she said. “All we’re asking for is the same conditions as similar businesses within the district.”

    In an email, Avalon administrator Scott Wahl noted that the special conditions that permit outdoor music only between noon and 8 p.m. were adopted in June by council and apply to all seven holders of liquor licenses in Avalon, including the Union League, which took over the Whitebrier last year.

    Still, Wahl said, “I believe the Borough Council will attempt to revisit the issue to balance the interests of the business community and the residential community.

    “I think it’s fair to say both sides want to figure this out collaboratively,” he said.

    Three and One will be back at Gully’s this Friday. Thompson said the owners initially assured them the usual 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. gig would be fine but have since asked them to play from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

  • Camden man is arrested after a K-9 dog finds a phone allegedly used to solicit nude images from 7-year-old girl

    Camden man is arrested after a K-9 dog finds a phone allegedly used to solicit nude images from 7-year-old girl

    A 36-year-old Camden man was charged with soliciting sexually explicit photos from a 7-year-old girl after a specially trained K-9 dog found the phone the man allegedly used to message the victim, Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. MacAulay said Wednesday.

    Elmer Lao was arrested on July 22 after a search was conducted at his residence and the phone was discovered in his bedroom by a K-9 dog named Rookie, who is trained to detect electronic devices, MacAulay said.

    Lao was charged with second-degree attempted manufacturing of child sexual abuse material and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child. He was being held at the Camden County Correctional Facility pending a detention hearing, MacAulay said.

    On July 20, the special victims and high-tech crimes units of the prosecutor’s office began the investigation after the 7-year-old girl disclosed that a man had begun sending her messages on TikTok and by text message, MacAulay said.

    Investigators determined that Lao allegedly engaged in messaging conversations with the girl, whom he knew to be 7 years old, MacAulay said.

    Lao allegedly sent nude videos of himself to the girl and requested that the girl send nude photos of herself in return, MacAulay said.

    “Predators often use social media and messaging apps to target children, making parental involvement more important than ever,” MacAulay said in a statement.

    “I urge every parent to regularly monitor their child’s messages on TikTok and other social media platforms and to have ongoing conversations about online safety and the risks of communicating with strangers,” MacAulay said.

    Anyone with information that could be helpful to the investigation can contact Detective Jessica Minniti of the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit at 856-225-8537. Tips may also be sent to CAMDEN.TIPS.

  • Storm warnings have been outdoing the actual storms in the Philly area

    Storm warnings have been outdoing the actual storms in the Philly area

    The smartphone alerts and the battery of weather watches and warnings were chilling. But they failed to capture what actually happened in the immediate Philadelphia area.

    As it turned out Tuesday, not all that much happened, beyond a beneficial rainfall, some flashbulb lightning, and wind gusts that officially did not get past 34 mph. Heavy rains hammered Upper Bucks County, but around Philly, creeks behaved and flooding reports were isolated, even as damaging storms struck to the north and south of the region.

    As so often occurs with summer thunderstorm outbreaks — not to mention winter storms — we learned science is playing catch-up with the atmosphere. That was evident Tuesday night, and if you feel as though you’ve seen this movie before, the forecasts and the outcomes were similar on July 18 and 21.

    And expect recurrences — and surprise storms — even if the climate stops changing.

    The atmosphere still is jealously guarding some of its most important secrets, said Bill Bunting, deputy director of the federal Storm Prediction Center, the national house of mayhem in Norman, Okla., that is responsible for all the severe-storm and tornado watches.

    In his 40-plus years in the storm-forecasting business, Bunting said, “I have seen remarkable progress, but we’re nowhere near perfection. In the end, the science has its limitations.”

    About the Tuesday night storms

    Life is unfair, and that works both ways. The Philly region has had its share of storm ambushes historically, and as for what did not happen in and around the city Tuesday, “we’ll consider that a much more fortunate outcome than what could have been,” said Mike Lee, meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.

    The outcome was similar to that of July 18 and July 21, when the menu of threats — wind, possible floods and tornadoes, lightning — was about the same. The gusts on the 18th did not get above 35 mph at Philadelphia International Airport, and they did not get above 30 mph on the 21st.

    Bunting said this week’s storms were particularly problematical meteorologically. “The wind fields were quite strong” in the upper atmosphere, he said. “That environment was not one to mess around with.”

    It was as though the system had wandered in from a different season, when cooler temperatures create sharp temperature contrasts that drive storm development, Lee’s colleague Patrick O’Hara said.

    At 12:50 p.m., the storm center had seen enough to issue a broad-brush severe-thunderstorm watch that covered a huge swath of the Mid-Atlantic region, including much of Pennsylvania and all of New Jersey and Delaware.

    A tornado watch followed a few hours later.

    The Mount Holly office issued two tornado warnings for the Philly area — including one covering Wilmington and Chester City.

    However, the two twisters verified by the Mount Holly office occurred in Talbot County, Md.

    The heaviest rains — in some cases over 4 inches in Quakertown — mostly were confined well to the north of Philly. Officially, 0.72 inches of rain was measured at PHL.

    Wind-damage and flooding reports around the Philly area were sparse, although Bunting advised it can take days following a storm to get an accurate assessment of impacts.

    The future of thunderstorm forecasting

    Bunting suggested that complaints about forecast accuracy could be viewed as forms of flattery, since they well from the public’s expectations that, in turn, well from advances in forecasting.

    In 1985, Bunting recalled, he was working with one computer-model output that he received via a fax machine, and observation tools primitive by today’s standards.

    But forecasting the development and movement of thunderstorms remains one of the great challenges of meteorology, and it is inevitable that storms are not going to materialize in some areas that are under a storm watch.

    “You don’t now exactly where those storms will organize into a cluster, or fast-moving line segment,” he said. “So you have to put larger areas on notice.”

    A wild card in any cluster or line of storms would be renegade, isolated storms, the kind that are apt to spin up a tornado, Bunting said.

    For any given storm, he said, “until it forms in a larger area with similar conditions, it’s hard to pinpoint the risk.”

    What would it take to pinpoint the risks? Improved understanding of storm physics, improved remote-sensing capabilities, and more powerful models, Bunting said.

    “It is not a trivial challenge,” he said. “The decisions are not going to be perfect.”

    That is not necessarily a bad development, he added.

    “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we knew what the weather would be in great detail, weeks and months advance,” he said. “It seems to me it would get kind of old.”

  • Worker was ‘impaled’ by blow torch while dismantling an old crane at EMR Camden

    Worker was ‘impaled’ by blow torch while dismantling an old crane at EMR Camden

    A worker at EMR was impaled by a blow torch while taking apart a crane for scrap metal, according to Camden Fire Department incident reports.

    Camden County had confirmed that a worker at the scrap metal plant had been transported to the hospital after suffering life-threatening injuries less than two weeks ago on July 18. The man remains in the hospital in stable condition and conscious.

    The incident took place less than a week after the company announced its phased reopening after a string of fires. A judge had allowed EMR to resume operations after the company sued the city of Camden for suspending its operations.

    Fire department documents obtained by The Inquirer through a public records request reveal that worker was injured while dismantling a crane.

    He was on a stretcher with “what appeared to be a large Oxy-Acetylene blowtorch handle impaled into his left bicep and into his torso,” when Camden City Fire Department Battalion Chief Ezequiel Tirado arrived on the scene to respond to a burn victim, according to his report.

    Another worker who could not speak English had cuts on his face, and blood and mud on his hands, according to Tirado’s report. They spoke in Spanish, and the man said he was hurt but declined to be brought to the hospital, stating that he’s an undocumented worker.

    “I told him, ‘Don’t worry about that. Let’s get you some help,’” Tirado wrote. “He stared at me then ran away.”

    He was later found at the hospital, Tirado said.

    William Scott, the night time operations manager for EMR, said he did not know what caused the workers’ injuries, according to Tirado’s report. Scott said they were using a cutting torch to cut an old crane for scrap metal.

    Tirado described the site of the incident as “very dark with no lighting equipment” and lots of debris. He said emergency responders set up lighting and discovered a pool of blood near the crane and under a lift.

    Camden County spokesperson Dan Keashen said Wednesday that the now-stabilized man who was impaled with the blow torch was transported to the hospital in critical condition. He said the county police department is still investigating the incident.

    Joe Balzano, the CEO of EMR, said on the phone Wednesday that the workers were subcontractors hired to demolish an old crane and not employees of EMR.

    He said the injured worker is “a very hardworking nice man, unfortunately who was involved in a workplace injury.”

    “We’re just glad that he’s doing well,” the CEO said. “It’s unfortunate, heavy industry situations have, you know, unfortunate accidents … we just hope he does continues to progress well.”

  • Federal judge dismisses Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking New Jersey voter records

    Federal judge dismisses Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking New Jersey voter records

    A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit from President Donald Trump’s administration that sought New Jersey’s unredacted voter files.

    The case — one of more than two dozen lawsuits filed by the Trump administration against states ahead of the midterm election — predates New Jersey’s recent disclosure that thousands of noncitizens had been registered to vote in 2023 and 2024 due to a glitch in the motor vehicle system.

    The Justice Department attempted to use that news as leverage in the case, but it was unsuccessful.

    U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi ruled the department did not have the authority to compel New Jersey to hand over its unredacted records.

    “The Constitution’s architects chose to delegate election administration to the states, recognizing local governments have the deepest understanding of their constituents’ circumstances,” Quraishi wrote in the ruling, which granted New Jersey’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

    Quraishi has become the 18th U.S. District Court judge to rule against the Trump administration on the issue, according to data from the Brennan Center for Justice.

    The Trump administration will likely appeal the case, as the president and his allies have made election security a focal point ahead of the November midterms. It is mounting an appeal in a similar case in Pennsylvania.

    The ruling in the state’s favor came a day after New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill formally told the Justice Department she would not release personal information about noncitizen voters who had been mistakenly added to the state’s voter rolls ahead of the 2024 election.

    Sherrill announced last week that about 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote due to a glitch in the automatic voter registration system at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. She said fewer than 400 had cast ballots and there was no evidence they had affected election results.

    On Tuesday, she said the New Jersey Department of State had begun removing 4,500 voters from the rolls. But there is a chance the rest could actually be citizens, so counties will review those about 2,000 individuals to ensure no eligible voters are disenfranchised, she said.

    Following Sherrill’s disclosure last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon requested the full names, dates of birth, nationalities, and home addresses of the individuals who were erroneously registered, as well as additional information about the noncitizens who voted, within a week.

    Sherrill had publicly indicated she would not hand over the data, but her letter Tuesday put it on the books.

    The Justice Department’s request has no legal basis, Sherrill said in a Tuesday letter to Dhillon, and sharing “extensive personal information about thousands of New Jersey residents” is limited by state and federal privacy laws.

    “Here and always, I remain committed to protecting New Jerseyans’ personally identifying information,” Sherrill wrote, reiterating her stance from the previous week, when she cited concerns about federal data breaches under Trump.

    In response to Sherrill’s rebuffing, Dhillon said the Justice Department’s request was rooted in the legal authority to “keep ineligible voters off its rolls” and vowed to obtain the information “through all legal means!”

    Sherrill’s “refusal to cooperate with federal law enforcement does nothing to protect law-abiding NJ voters,” Dhillon said on X.

    Sherrill on Tuesday criticized the Trump administration for “weaponizing the government against individuals that disagree with them.”

    She pointed to an issue during her campaign last year in which the federal government provided personal information about her that should have been redacted, like her Social Security number, to an ally of her Republican opponent. The National Personnel Records Center director apologized at the time and called it a rare error, but Sherrill claims her data were “weaponized” against her.

    Sherrill has not shied away from the issue of voter access in New Jersey as it becomes a national talking point in the debate over election security after last week’s revelation that thousands of people had been improperly added to the voter rolls when applying for driver’s licenses and identification cards.

    On Tuesday, she championed a new law, the John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act, that offers a slew of policies meant to increase voter participation.

    The erroneous registrations took place between June 2023 and June 2024 under former Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration due to a software glitch in New Jersey’s motor vehicle system, which processes the automatic registration when citizens obtain an ID or a license unless they decline.

    Even though they checked “no” when asked if they were a U.S. citizen, the noncitizens were registered anyway.

    Sherrill pointed a finger at her predecessor but a spokesperson for Murphy said the former governor had “no knowledge” of the glitch.

    U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a South Jersey Republican, said he planned to hold hearings over the issue and called on Sherrill to answer a slate of questions.

    Sherrill said Tuesday that her administration had hired a law firm to conduct an independent bipartisan investigation. One of the firm’s main partners worked under former Republican Gov. Chris Christie as attorney general and was later appointed by Christie to the Senate, she noted, saying “we have nothing to hide.”

    Christie said in a post on X that Sherrill “made the right choice tapping my former AG Jeff Chiesa to lead the independent investigation into New Jersey’s voter rolls.”

    “Jeff won’t hide anything from the public,” he said. “You can count on it.”

    But the New Jersey GOP questioned Wednesday why Sherrill would not comply with the Justice Department if she “has nothing to hide.”

    “She ran on transparency and accountability,” the party said in a post online. “Apparently, those were campaign promises that expired the moment she was sworn in.”

    Republicans have seized on the noncitizen voter registrations to make the case for the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote.

  • Akira Suwa, award-winning photojournalist at The Inquirer, has died at 84

    Akira Suwa, award-winning photojournalist at The Inquirer, has died at 84

    Akira Suwa, 84, of Laurel Springs, Camden County, award-winning longtime photojournalist at The Inquirer, mentor, and lifelong green-thumb gardener, died Tuesday, July 14, of complications from dementia at his home.

    Born in what is now South Korea and reared in Japan, Mr. Suwa came to the United States for good in 1967 as a landscape designer and amateur photographer. When a landscaping job at a Florida garden center dried up, he polished his photography skills and, from 1969 to his retirement in 2014, worked as an award-winning staff photographer at the Tampa Tribune, the St. Petersburg Times, the Palm Beach Post, and The Inquirer.

    He joined The Inquirer in 1977 and, for 37 years, provided readers with thousands of illustrative, dramatic, stylish, and emotion-evoking photos from assignments around Philadelphia, South Jersey, and the world. He took poignant photos after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and during Operation Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia and the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Japan.

    He sent back tragic and heroic images of conflict and despair from Libya and Brazil. He photographed drug traffickers in Colombia and was detained by authorities in China.

    Before the Inquirer, Mr. Suwa took photographs for the Palm Beach Post, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Tampa Tribune.Courtesy of the family

    Locally, he photographed athletes celebrating and commiserating, politicians and celebrities walking and waving, fashion models on runways, and restaurant specialties on tables. Former Inquirer colleagues called him a “brilliant photojournalist” and a “funny, engaging and terrific colleague” on Facebook.

    One former colleague said: “Akira told thousands of great stories with his camera.” His family said in a tribute: “Akira believed every story was worth telling.”

    Why did best-selling author Carol Saline email The Inquirer’s obit writer?

    Before the Inquirer, Mr. Suwa took photographs on all kinds of assignments for the Palm Beach Post, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Tampa Tribune. His father was an avid amateur photographer back in Japan, and Mr. Suwa honed his own emerging photo skills at nights and on weekends in Florida before joining the Tribune in 1969.

    He won several awards from the National Press Photographers Association and was named the 1973 Florida Newspaper Photographer of the Year by the University of Florida. He mentored young photographers and students, and one former student said: “He taught me so much about making the best photos possible.”

    Mr. Suwa photographed his wife, Deborah, often.Courtesy of the family

    Away from the lens, Mr. Suwa enjoyed tending his backyard garden in South Jersey, watching the birds flit about the feeders, and chasing the squirrels away. His mother was a serious gardener in Japan, and he studied agriculture in California as an exchange student while earning a degree at Tokyo Agricultural University in 1966.

    In 1964, he took a year off from college to work as a busser in the Japan pavilion at the World’s Fair in New York. “I fell in love with America, especially New York City,” Mr. Suwa wrote in an autobiography he shared with his family. “I was young and motivated to do something different from my peers back in Japan.”

    Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer

    Akira Suwa was born Dec. 22, 1941, in what was then Taegu, Korea. He and his family fled Korea for Japan as refugees after World War II, and he grew up mainly in Osaka.

    He never formally studied photography, but his innate camera skills got him a job with a photo studio in Florida in the late 1960s.

    Mr. Suwa photographed these Mummers in 1978. Akira Suwa / Staff Photographer

    He met Deborah Carter through a mutual friend at the studio, and he took her to see the musical Hello, Dolly! on their first date. She was smitten, she said, and they married in 1969, and had daughters Jasmine and Keiko.

    They settled in Laurel Springs when he joined The Inquirer and traveled to Japan several times to visit family and friends. “We enjoyed the best of both cultures,” his wife said.

    When parents die, even the mundane memories comfort their children. Here are their tales, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer.

    Mr. Suwa listened to jazz and built his own home computers. He liked to play pranks on the girls, his daughter Keiko said, but was simultaneously warm, serious, and practical. “If there was a job to do,” she said, “he would get it done.”

    His daughter Jasmine said: “He was forthright, sincere, and full of integrity.”

    Mr. Suwa and his family traveled to visit family in Florida and Japan. Courtesy of the family

    He doted on his wife and their grandchildren, and his family praised “his sharp eye, his mischievous sense of humor, and his devotion to his family.” His wife said: “He had my back and was as honest as the day is long.”

    Surviving spouses always remember how they met their mate. Here are the meet-cute stories told to The Inquirer’s obit writer.

    Friends called him “the kindest person,” “wonderful and enormously talented,” and “a caring person to everyone.” He was interviewed by Photo Lounge in 2022 and said: “I just take pictures, and I like people.”

    His wife said: “He was my human, my person, my guy.”

    In addition to his wife and daughters, Mr. Suwa is survived by two grandchildren and other relatives. A brother died earlier.

    Visitation with the family is to be from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1, at Gardner Funeral Home, 126 S. Black Horse Pike, Runnemede, N.J. 08078.

    Donations in his name may be made to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Box 2675, New York, N.Y. 10108; and the Animal Welfare Association, 509 Centennial Blvd., Voorhees, N.J. 08043.

  • Switch to new digital tablets in N.J. prisons prompts civil rights lawsuit

    Switch to new digital tablets in N.J. prisons prompts civil rights lawsuit

    A man incarcerated in a New Jersey prison has sued the state in a bid to block corrections officials from forcing prisoners to surrender personal electronic tablets they purchased to message loved ones, listen to music, and access other digital content.

    Alonzo Hill, who has been incarcerated at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton since 1990, filed a civil rights complaint last week asking a federal judge to allow inmates to keep the handheld devices and their content — or require the state to reimburse people what they paid for them.

    The dispute comes as the state Department of Corrections switches to a new provider, ViaPath Technologies, to meet the communications needs of the 13,000 people in state custody.

    JPay had supplied such services since 2014, with people purchasing tablets and paying one-time fees for content they downloaded for use in their cells and recreation areas. The ViaPath tablets, in contrast, are considered loaners that are provided for free but require users to continuously pay for content in a subscription model. ViaPath users in New Jersey prisons also face high restitution fees for damaging tablets and new limits on tablet use outside of cells.

    Inmates bought the JPay tablets and content with the understanding they were “owned property without limitations,” Hill wrote. Yet corrections officials are requiring people to turn them in for disposal or send them home, gave incarcerated people no opportunity to chime in on the changes, and ignored his inquiries and grievances over it, he added.

    That’s a violation of the 14th Amendment, which says that no state shall deprive people of property without due process of law, he charged. Hill is director of his prison’s Inmate Legal Association, a nonprofit in which jailhouse lawyers help other incarcerated people with their court filings and disciplinary matters.

    “Many inmates utilize these tablets and content (at no additional cost) multiple times each day to relieve stress and anxieties of prison life,” Hill wrote. “State inmates were led to believe that if they didn’t violate JPay’s terms or NJDOC’s rules regarding the e-tablets, the chargers and content, that they could purchase and retain both throughout their sentences.”

    He also objected to the “exponential cost increases” he suspects users will face under ViaPath, noting that many inmates make less than $2 a day for prison jobs — and some make nothing, such as those held in disciplinary units.

    Corrections officials also have failed to guarantee that family photos downloaded and digital content purchased through JPay will transfer to the new ViaPath tablets, he added. They told people in custody that JPay tablets not sent home or surrendered for disposal will be considered contraband subject to confiscation, with their owners facing discipline, Hill said.

    Chris Greeder, a Department of Corrections spokesman, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

    But he said in an email that the department, JPay, and ViaPath have “reached an agreement allowing digital assets, including music, emails, photos, and related attachments, to be transferred to the new platform.”

    Eight of the state’s nine adult prisons have transitioned to ViaPath since March, with 9,500 people now using the new tablets, Greeder added. New Jersey State Prison’s switch is scheduled for the week of Aug. 10, he said. The department’s contract with JPay was set to expire this Friday, so officials negotiated a 90-day extension so people incarcerated in Trenton can continue using JPay services, he added.

    Officials switched vendors because ViaPath offers “a modern communications system” at a lower cost than JPay, Greeder said.

    Phone calls, money transfers, electronic messages, and video visits through ViaPath were cheaper than similar services through JPay, according to contracts and price sheets the New Jersey Monitor reviewed in May. It was tough to compare prices for music, movies, games, and such content, though, because those are pay-as-you-go services under ViaPath and outright purchases under JPay.

    The Department of Corrections is “committed to providing incarcerated individuals with safe, secure, reliable communication services” that allow them to communicate with family and loved ones, Greeder said in an email.

    Critics, though, have accused ViaPath of predatory pricing because of its pricing structure, service fees, and other practices, with people incarcerated in Nevada prisons boycotting use of ViaPath tablets earlier this year. The Virginia-based company also has racked up more than 600 complaints in the past three years with the Better Business Bureau and averages one star (out of five) in 87 reviews on its website, with many people complaining about costs and customer service. (JPay fared only marginally better on the watchdog site, with 368 complaints over the same time period and 27 reviews averaging 1.2 stars.)

    Ronald Allen, who’s also incarcerated in Trenton, filed a statement supporting Hill’s lawsuit, voicing an additional concern. He said people make inquiries and file grievances through their JPay tablets, which connect to kiosks in each prison where people download content and communicate both inside and outside the prison via a restricted, surveilled intranet. He has stored all the inquiries and grievances he’s made in the past decade on his JPay tablet, he wrote.

    “Without the kiosks, no accurate, reliable records of inquiries or grievances will exist,” Allen wrote.

    Greeder said officials are working with the vendors to acquire historical records of inquiries and grievances.

    Hill accuses state officials of deliberate indifference and is seeking a court order that would allow inmates to keep their JPay tablets, require the state to transfer all JPay content to the new ViaPath tablets, or reimburse people for content officials can’t or won’t transfer over. People in New Jersey prisons have spent between $1.5 million and $3.2 million each year over the past decade on JPay services, according to data the New Jersey Monitor obtained from the Department of Corrections last spring.

    Hill also is asking the judge to appoint an attorney to represent him in court and award damages of $7,500 per defendant.

    The lawsuit names as defendants ViaPath Technologies, Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Corrections Commissioner Victoria Kuhn, and New Jersey State Prison administrators Jeffrey Crothers and Douglas Stark.

    Spokespeople for Sherrill and ViaPath did not respond to requests for comment.

    This story originally appeared on New Jersey Monitor.

  • Cherry Hill’s Brio Italian Grille is closed. For real this time.

    Cherry Hill’s Brio Italian Grille is closed. For real this time.

    The signage is down and the furniture and appliances were on their way out of Cherry Hill’s Brio Italian Grille on Tuesday after the restaurant permanently shut its doors.

    “We have made the difficult decision to permanently close our Brio location in Cherry Hill,” a sign posted to the restaurant’s entrance reads. “We are grateful for the opportunity to have served this community and are committed to supporting our team members during this transition.”

    A sign posted to the entrance of Brio Italian Grille in Cherry Hill announces the permanent closure of the restaurant on July 28, 2026.Lacey Latch

    Calls to the restaurant went unanswered Tuesday and the location had been removed from the Brio Italian Grille website.

    The closure comes less than two months after staff at the restaurant emphasized that the doors were still open amid rumors of a potential closure.

    The other Brio Italian Grille location in Marlton closed in May, less than a year after the chain’s parent company filed for bankruptcy for the second time in five years.

    South Jersey residents interested in a visit to the Italian restaurant will now have to travel more than 200 miles to the nearest location, in Connecticut.

    The patio at Brio Italian Grille in Cherry Hill was cleared of all furniture save for some stacks of chairs on July 28, 2026 after the restaurant’s sudden closure.Lacey Latch

    Is Fogo de Chão moving in?

    As rumors of closure swirled last month, so, too, did rumors that Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse would move into the space.

    42 Freeway, a publication covering development in South Jersey, first reported the news in May, followed by NJ.com, which cited project plans filed by Fogo de Chão and the owners of the Towne Place shopping center to the Cherry Hill Township Zoning Board of Adjustment in April.

    Those plans propose a remodeled restaurant with 296 seats, and the required zoning permits for the conversion to the steakhouse have already been issued, Cherry Hill Township attorney Cosmas Diamantis previously told The Inquirer.

    Staff were at Cherry Hill’s Brio Italian Grille on July 28, 2026 clearing out the restaurant following the sudden closure.Lacey Latch

    Now, with Brio closed, it is still unclear if the steakhouse plans to lease the property.

    A spokesperson for Fogo de Chão declined to comment on the matter last month and again on Tuesday.

    Joe Morris, an executive for M&M Realty Partners, which owns the landlord entity that manages Towne Place tenants, previously said that the chain has inquired about joining the Cherry Hill retail center for more than a decade. Morris did not respond to requests for comment this week.

    “I can absolutely tell you, if Brio gives their space back, Fogo is 100% a tenant we would be interested in speaking with,” Morris said last month amid the first round of closure rumors.

  • A guard at the Fort Dix federal prison had a yearlong sexual relationship with a prisoner, feds say

    A guard at the Fort Dix federal prison had a yearlong sexual relationship with a prisoner, feds say

    A guard at a federal prison in Fort Dix, Burlington County, had a lengthy sexual relationship with a prisoner and sometimes paid other inmates to act as lookouts while the two had sex in an office, according to federal authorities.

    Jordan Pensak of North Brunswick was charged this week with sexual abuse of a person in custody, court records show.

    Pensak’s relationship with the prisoner — whom authorities did not identify — began after she started working on his unit in 2024, according to a criminal complaint. A witness reported the pair’s suspected encounters to law enforcement, the complaint said, saying Pensak and the man had sex “multiple times” in an office as the paid lookouts stood nearby and watched for other corrections officers.

    Investigators found more than 100 sexually explicit photos and messages that Pensak and the prisoner shared on Instagram and on cell phones the man apparently possessed while behind bars, the complaint said.

    At times, the document said, Pensak was overt in the messages about her relationship with the prisoner, writing in a January message to an unidentified recipient that she had been in the relationship “for the past year” and that she didn’t intend to end it.

    A month later, the complaint said, when someone else asked Pensak if she knew she could be criminally charged and go to jail for her actions, she wrote back: “Yes I know.”

    Pensak also sent messages to people earlier this year in which she detailed a pregnancy scare, the complaint said. At one point, she said that if she were pregnant, the baby would be a different race than her husband, and that it “ain’t good for this investigation.”

    A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the allegations against Pensak, but did say Pensak had been placed on administrative leave.

    Attempts to reach Pensak’s lawyer for comment Wednesday were not immediately successful.

  • A Craig LaBan pizza pick in Cherry Hill | Inquirer South Jersey

    A Craig LaBan pizza pick in Cherry Hill | Inquirer South Jersey

    Good morning, South Jersey. Don’t pack away your rain jacket yet. The region is still under a flood watch with more showers expected.

    Inquirer food critic Craig LaBan visited Barclay Pies in Cherry Hill and found a new standard of gluten-free pizza in the region.

    And speaking of Cherry Hill, the township banned large-scale data centers, becoming the latest South Jersey municipality to send a clear message to potential developers.

    Plus, Gov. Mikie Sherrill shared Tuesday that about 2,000 registered voters who were identified last week as noncitizens may actually be citizens after all, and more news of the day.

    — Taylor Allen (southjersey@inquirer.com)

    P.S. If you like what we’re doing — or see room for improvement — take our survey. We want your thoughts so we can better serve you and remain your trusted source for South Jersey news.

    If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

    Craig LaBan’s gluten-free pizza standard

    There’s a reason Barclay Pies in Cherry Hill generates a lot of buzz among the gluten-free community, according to our food critic, Craig LaBan.

    The owners worked for nine months to create the crust for its gluten-free pies. LaBan explains that the pizza has a bit of cornmeal for the bottom crunch, a frico cheese band around the edges, and a pan-based format that helps to prevent cross-contamination.

    Barclay Pies sells both standard and gluten-free pies, and the latter now accounts for a third of the pizzas they sell.

    “There’s a market need for a pizzeria that was truly inclusive,” co-owner Thomas “TJ” Hunton said.

    Read on for the full review.

    Cherry Hill’s data center ban

    It’s official: No large-scale data centers can come to Cherry Hill.

    The township council voted unanimously this week to list data centers as a non-permitted land use within its borders, as debate around artificial intelligence technology continues nationwide.

    “We don’t think that Cherry Hill should be a guinea pig,” Cherry Hill Mayor David Fleisher said. “So while the technology is evolving, we wanted to be proactive and make sure that we eliminated a problem before it became one.”

    If a developer wanted to build one in the future, they would have to get a land-use variance from the zoning board. And according to a city planner who worked on the ordinance, it’s one of the hardest approvals to get.

    So far, no data center developers have approached the township.

    Reporter Lacey Latch has the story.

    What to know today

    • About 2,000 of the 6,600 New Jersey registered voters who were identified as noncitizens could be citizens after all, Gov. Sherrill said on Tuesday. The news comes a week after her disclosure that a software glitch registered thousands of noncitizens to vote ahead of the 2024 election.
    • A state grand jury voted not to file criminal charges on Monday against a Haddon Township police officer in connection to the fatal shooting of a Pennsauken man while responding to a reported burglary in 2024.
    • Due to this week’s predicted storms, the scheduled maintenance of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge that was supposed to close to vehicle traffic Tuesday night into Wednesday has now been postponed to begin Monday, Aug. 3, at 9 p.m. and conclude Tuesday, Aug. 4, at 5 a.m.
    • The Burlington County Library System on Wednesday is launching a “StoryWalk,” an interactive attraction that features reading stations that display pages of an illustrated children’s book. The stations are built around the playground at Riverton Memorial Park.
    • Four Green Cats Cafe in Mount Laurel announced an expansion coming later this year to a second location under construction in Haddonfield. Owner Nadia Vasa told New Jersey Voyager it will be called The Grand Salon, with a full commercial kitchen to serve authentic Czech dishes and room to host a cultural program.

    🧠 Trivia time

    The Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden has had several name changes since the venue opened in 1995. Which of the below was its shortest-lived name?

    A) Tweeter Center

    B) BB&T Pavilion

    C) Susquehanna Bank Center

    D) Waterfront Music Pavilion

    Think you know? Check your answer.

    What we’re…

    🥖 Craving: Fresh bread from Dulce Artisanal Pastry in Collingswood.

    🎤 Playing: 76 Seconds with Boyz II Men.

    🏀 Running: The numbers to see how likely it is for the Sixers to clinch a championship with their revamped roster (thank you, LeBron).

    🧩 Unscramble the anagram

    Hint: 🎓 The Prof

    INTRAVENOUS WIRY

    Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Dan Tureck, who solved last Wednesday’s anagram: Rancocas Creek. It’s Burlington County’s largest interior river.

    🏡 On the market

    A private Medford home with a large backyard deck

    Sitting on almost five acres, this Medford home has hardwood floors, a modern kitchen with an exposed brick wall, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, and a family room.

    Outside, there’s space for gardening, a deck for entertaining, and an above-ground pool. Catch an open house this Sunday from noon to 2 p.m.

    See more photos of the property here.

    Price: $539,999 | Size: 1,836 SF |Acreage: 4.89

    Congrats on making it halfway through the week! 🎉 Let’s do this again tomorrow.

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