A Freckle On The Face Of The World

Come on, you know Staten Islanders get upset about this kind of stuff*:

Just about everyone on Belmar’s beaches is there for the same purpose: To lounge on the sand in a swimsuit and soak up some sun.

Until, that is, the mayor of the Jersey Shore town says something offensive to pit them against each other.

In this case, it’s the Jerseyans against the Staten Islanders, the natives against the allegedly noisome summer renters.

In the July 4 issue of his weekly newsletter, Mayor Ken Pringle talks about an “SI girl behaving badly” after she got into a fight with a peer at a club.

“As the Staten Island girl was pummeling the Boonton girl’s face, she used the hand she was still holding her drink glass in,” the newsletter reads. “Now, we’re not sure if the glass was stuck to her hand cause of all the hair spray or if this is a technique Staten Island girls learn in Brownies, but we are thankful she left her brass knuckles and straight razor in her other purse.”

The slurs occasioned a furor among Island residents who frequent the shore, even inspiring one councilman to tell people to “avoid (Pringle’s) town like the plague.”

And the newsletter didn’t only single out Staten Island girls. It also talked about “guidos” from just about anywhere — they’re “as welcome as, oh, Canada Geese” — and “blondes” who apparently told a code enforcement officer they had a mountain of garbage in the backyard because they didn’t know how to take out the trash.

. . .

Pringle said he started the newsletter last year to remind renters about the rules after people who bought houses in the area started complaining about noise from summer renters. He said the newsletter goes out to 300 or so summer tenants from the tri-state area and addresses issues such as noise, maintaining clean properties and other quality-of-life laws.

“It was designed to be funny but at the same time give them information and keep them out of harm’s way,” Pringle said. “Mainly, I try to make it enjoyable and interesting to read.”

He said the snarky newsletters have been effective and that the number of noise summonses has drastically decreased, but he added that it’s not worth the commotion he has stirred up and that this week’s newsletter will be his last. It will include an apology to anyone he offended.

Full text here:

In our never-ending quest to keep our summer renters informed and our wider readership amused, we have culled the Belmar police blotter for items of potential educational value to our readers. Which brought us to a reported incident earlier this summer in which two women had a spat in (you’ll never guess) D’Jais. Now, if that isn’t shocking enough, hold on to your seat: One of the women was from Staten Island!! (Unbelievable, right? Only one of the women? We thought all of the women in D’Jais are from Staten Island.). The other woman was from, of all places, Boonton, NJ, which according to Google maps appears to be a suburb of either Towaco or Hibernia. (We’re guessing the Boonton girl was either in D’Jais on some kind of sick bet, or was practicing for an audition on Survivor.

Then again, maybe she just happened by, saw the people on the line out front, and thought, “Cool, a costumeparty!”). Anyway, the spat ended the way most fights with SI girls do. The SI woman grabbed the Boonton woman by the hair (we’re told that in Staten Island, this is the female equivalent of a guy kicking another guy in the groin — only without the warm and friendly connotations) — and began punching her face in. We realize, so far, this is not exactly newsworthy. Journalistically speaking, “SI woman punches other woman” is right up there with “Dog bites man.” But here’s the twist: As the Staten Island girl was pummeling the Boonton girl’s face, she used the hand she was still holding her drink glass in. Now, we’re not sure if the glass was stuck to her hand cause of all the hair spray or if this is a technique Staten Island girls learn in Brownies, but we are thankful she left her brass knuckles and straight razor in her other purse.

*They can be sensitive, you know.