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The customers who'd gathered in the packed Toys4U parking lot weren’t social distancing or wearing masks, state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said. Ten employees also were together in the store – only three of them wearing masks, he said.
Ten cars blocked the fire lane, the attorney general said.
Police charged owner Yossi Itzkowitz and manager Tzvi Blau with violating Gov. Phil Murphy’s closure of “non-essential” businesses.
They weren’t the only one who gave beleaguered Lakewood police trouble over the past week, the attorney general said.
Israel Goldenberg, 23, of Monsey, was charged after officers on Sunday crashed a catered backyard gathering that featured a chef and two waiters, along with a bouncy castle where kids played, Grewal said.
Also charged were guests Mendel Steiner, 27, Dina Endzweig, 26, Johnathan Schick, 31, Hindy Schick, 32, Ephraim Weiss, 31, and Chaya Weiss, 29, all of Brooklyn, he said.
Among other violators statewide, Grewal cited a tennis and fitness club that Mendham police closed after they found the owner and several others using it.
Jeffrey Carter, 36, owner of The Club at Mendham, was charged with violating the “non-essential” business closure order.
So were Justin Kaplan, 21, Samuel Zenna, 20, Widyawati Pertusi, 47, and Deepak Kausal, 44, all of Mendham, and Richard Lee, 57, of Long Valley, Grewal said.
Carter also was charged separately with “aiding and abetting violations of the emergency orders,” he said.
Grewal also cited the case of Anthony McKee, 31, Camden, who was arrested for a domestic violence incident in the city and spit at officers who tried to speak to him through an opening in the barrier between the front and back of the patrol car.
McKee said “he had the coronavirus and that the officers were going to get it,” the attorney general said.
Police took him to Cooper University Hospital, where Grewal said he spit on another police officer.
City police charged McKee with two counts each of making terroristic threats during an emergency and spitting on police, as well as criminal mischief and disorderly conduct, he said.
Then there was Robert Bell, 35, of Pleasantville, who Grewal said was cited two days in a row for failing to wear a protective mask at area businesses and then did it again a third straight day at a Dunkin Donuts.
Pleasantville police this time charged him criminally “based was on his repeated, willful defiance of the emergency orders,” the attorney general said.
Seaside Park police charged Konstanti Apessos Jr., 21, of Manchester with defiant trespass after they found him sitting on a lifeguard chair reading a book, Grewal said. He reportedly admitted he knew the beach was closed.
Some New Jerseyans who’ve ignored social distancing and business closure orders are being ticketed, while others have been charged crimes that come with possible jail or even prison sentences and severe fines, particularly those involving defendants coughing on or spitting at police and claiming they have COVID-19.
Those convicted also end up with criminal records.
“This crackdown will continue until everyone gets the message that they need to stop these violations,” Grewal said.
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ALSO SEE: A defiant caravan of vehicles accompanied by pedestrians paraded through downtown Perth Amboy in violation of state coronavirus emergency orders, leading to a pair of arrests, authorities said.
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