Monday, August 4, 2014

You won't find any news in boring Page 1 'process' stories

Attractive storefronts are available on Cedar Lane, above and below, which doesn't seem to be doing as well as Teaneck's other major shopping street, Queen Anne Road, in the township's West Englewood section. Expensive kosher restaurants seem to predominate in both areas.

Few downtown merchants advertise in The Record, and the Woodland Park daily repays the favor by writing very little about their struggles. "Pay to play" is alive and well at North Jersey Media Group's flagship newspaper, too.


By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The major element on Page 1 of The Record today promises a "new round of debate" on state liquor licenses in mid-September.

NJ/DC -- the column from Washington correspondent Herb Jackson -- focuses on a cockamamie conservative scheme by Rep. Scott Garret, R-Wantage, to cheat New Jersey out of federal highway funds (A-1).

The two "process" pieces set up readers for what may or may not happen in the future, but they are deadly dull and have no place on the front page.

Consumer ignored

The one on updating the state's liquor license laws completely ignores the consumer, and the possible reduction in the number of BYO restaurants, one of the appeals of living and dining out in North Jersey.

Restaurants with liquor licenses rely on them as a major profit center, and they can charge $10 for a glass of wine from a bottle that cost $6.

A 750 milliliter bottle of wine yields six 4-ounce glasses. 



The shuttered Madre's Cuban Cuisine on Cedar Lane in Teaneck.


State trust fund?

Jackson's column and a recent editorial on the federal highway trust fund make no mention of the mess Governor Christie has made of the state Transportation Trust Fund, which is bankrupt.

The GOP bully refuses to raise the fund's main funding source -- the state's low gasoline tax -- just another aspect of a conservative no-tax stance that has hobbled the New Jersey Treasury.

The dumb headline on Jackson's column is inaccurate and misleading:


Garret
gas tax
bill stuck
in neutral


You can be stuck in gear, but not in "neutral."

And if the headline makes readers think Garret wants to raise the federal "gas tax," they are fools.

Slow local news

What's the point of yet another feature story on the Oritani Field Club, a Hackensack landmark that was bought by a developer in 2010, but won't close until the end of 2015 (L-1)?

The club, which is near the library, likely will be replaced by apartments and a parking garage as city officials chase tax ratables to dig themselves out of the financial hole created by Zisa family rule.



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