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Firefighters Douse Fair Lawn House Blaze Firefighters Douse Fair Lawn House Blaze
Firefighters Douse Fair Lawn House Blaze Firefighters quickly stopped a Wednesday afternoon blaze from doing serious damage to the interior of a Fair Lawn home. The two-alarm fire severely damaged the front of the 32nd Street residence just off southbound Route 208. A passerby sustained a minor injury trying to put out the flames shortly after 5:30 p.m., Fire Chief Michael Salvini said. Roughly 40 firefighters quickly converged on the scene, the chief said. Firefighters quickly converged on the 32nd Street home in Fair Lawn.Priscila Krischer / Fair Lawn Fire Department photographer “Our members quickly knocked down the exter…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Detectives Nab Bronx Pair In Violent Bergen County Carjackings Detectives Nab Bronx Pair In Violent Bergen County Carjackings
Detectives Nab Bronx Pair In Violent Bergen County Carjackings A pair of violent Bergen County carjackings – one that produced a 110 mph pursuit and another that left a driver wounded – both involved a Bronx man who’s now in custody, authorities said. Authorities have moved to extradite Dariel Perez-Grullon and an accused associate, Luis Guzman-Encarnacion, both 22, to New Jersey to face charges. The first incident literally began and ended in minutes after a 31-year-old livery driver had his Lexus E350 taken by gunpoint outside a home on Pascack Road in Washington Township shortly before 1 a.m. March 23. Paramus police spotted the vehicle soon after …

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Franklin Lakes Police Car Struck On Route 208, Rockland Driver Charged With DWI Franklin Lakes Police Car Struck On Route 208, Rockland Driver Charged With DWI
Franklin Lakes Police Car Struck On Route 208, Rockland Driver Charged With DWI A wrong-way driver was drunk when he crashed his sedan into a Franklin Lakes police car on Route 208, authorities said. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured when the collision occurred near Ewing Avenue and Route 287 shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday. Behind the wheel of the 2009 Acura, Franklin Lakes Police Capt. Mark McCombs said, was Samuel Ayeh-Brachie, 34, of Hillcrest, NY, a hamlet in Rockland County. Ayeh-Brachie was charged with DWI and received several other motor vehicle summonses before being released to a responsible adult under John's Law. The vehicles were removed by M…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
FLAT LEAVERS: Quartet Caught After Abandoning Stolen Car On Route 208 FLAT LEAVERS: Quartet Caught After Abandoning Stolen Car On Route 208
Flat Leavers: Quartet Caught After Abandoning Stolen Car On Route 208 GOTCHA! The out-of-control auto theft epidemic has frustrated law enforcers throughout New Jersey, but sometimes the good guys catch a break. Just ask police in Wyckoff. It was late morning when a concerned citizen called to report four young occupants abandoning a stolen Mercedes Benz S550 sedan that blew a tire on Route 208. All four vanished into the neighborhood between Cedar Hill and Grandview avenues, the caller said. Instead of splitting up, though, they stuck together. A wave of police from Wyckoff, Midland Park and Hawthorne instantly converged on the area. Wyckoff Police Chief D…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Snapple Truck Rams Glen Rock Shopping Strip, Driver Cited After Fleeing, Police Say Snapple Truck Rams Glen Rock Shopping Strip, Driver Cited After Fleeing, Police Say
Snapple Truck Rams Glen Rock Shopping Strip, Driver Cited After Fleeing, Police Say Snapple helped police find a driver who they said took off after his truck struck a small shopping strip in Glen Rock. Sgt. Robert Wojtecki determined that the truck that hit the Maple Avenue building at Harristown Road off northbound Route 208 in the middle of the afternoon belonged to Snapple Distributors out of Avondale, Police Chief Dean Ackermann said. "With the assistance of the company the driver was located and directed to return to the scene," Ackermann said. Edwin H. Hernandez, 40, of Union received summonses for leaving the scene of an accident and failing to report an accident,…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Grand Jury: No Reason To Charge Officer Whose SUV Struck, Killed Boy, 12, On Rainy Route 208 Grand Jury: No Reason To Charge Officer Whose SUV Struck, Killed Boy, 12, On Rainy Route 208
Grand Jury: No Reason To Charge Officer Whose SUV Struck, Killed Boy, 12, On Rainy Route 208 Following what was an unimaginable tragedy for all involved, a grand jury found no cause to pursue charges against a Bergen County sheriff's officer who struck and killed a 12-year-old boy who'd run into his path of his SUV on a dark and rainy highway, authorities announced Wednesday. Christian Tawadros was with three other juveniles who hopped the divider and dashed across Route 208 just north of Fair Lawn Avenue in Fair Lawn on April 14, 2019. Christian, who was in a special education program at the Thomas Jefferson Middle School, had joined his 7th-grade brother and two friends to go out…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Runaway SUV In Drive Instead Of Park Plows Through Front Window Of Rita's Ice In Glen Rock Runaway SUV In Drive Instead Of Park Plows Through Front Window Of Rita's Ice In Glen Rock
Runaway SUV In Drive Instead Of Park Plows Through Front Window Of Rita's Ice In Glen Rock A Rita's ice shop in Glen Rock was open for business when an SUV plowed through the front window. Fortunately no one was hurt, police said. The BMW came crashing through the Rita's Italian Ice and Frozen Custard on Maple Avenue near the Fair Lawn border just off Route 208 shortly before 7 p.m. The Glen Rock driver, 43, who was operating with an Australian driver's license, told responding officers that he failed to realize that his vehicle was still in drive when he parked, Police Chief Dean Ackermann said. The SUV also damaged a side door and some chairs and tables inside, but that was i…

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by Jerry DeMarco
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SWAT STANDOFF: Disturbed Barricaded Subject Emerges Without Incident In Wyckoff SWAT STANDOFF: Disturbed Barricaded Subject Emerges Without Incident In Wyckoff
SWAT Standoff: Disturbed Barricaded Subject Emerges Without Incident In Wyckoff A troubled resident who remained barricaded in a Wyckoff home for nearly an hour and a half Sunday eventually walked out unharmed, authorities said. A Bergen County Regional SWAT team was summoned and ramps on and off Route 208 were temporarily closed during the Grandview Avenue incident near St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. It began with a 911 call for "an emotionally disturbed person with a knife inside the home" around 1:45 p.m., Police Chief David Murphy said. "The person involved ultimately walked out unharmed and was transported" by the Wyckoff Volunteer Ambulance Corps to a local…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
New Jersey's Nabisco Factory To Close By Summer, 600 Workers Laid Off New Jersey's Nabisco Factory To Close By Summer, 600 Workers Laid Off
New Jersey's Nabisco Factory To Close By Summer, 600 Workers Laid Off The New Jersey Nabisco factory that has been pumping sweet cookie aromas into the air along Route 208 for years will shutter by the summer, leaving 600 workers without jobs. The Fair Lawn factory and another in Atlanta, Georgia will close in late August or early September, Borough Mayor Kurt Peluso and Nabisco's parent company, Mondelez International, said Thursday. The reason for the closure was a geographical one, Peluso said. While the snack company has one plant each serving the Central U.S. and West Coast, there were three serving the East Coast. Apparently, the three plants (New…

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by Cecilia Levine
News
HERO: Bergen Dealership GM Rescues Missing Wrong-Way Jersey Shore Driver, 78 HERO: Bergen Dealership GM Rescues Missing Wrong-Way Jersey Shore Driver, 78
Hero: Bergen Dealership GM Rescues Missing Wrong-Way Jersey Shore Driver, 78 Vehicles whizzed by as a disoriented 78-year-old driver more than 140 miles from home headed into oncoming traffic on a treacherous stretch of Route 4 in Fair Lawn. Don Chittum, the general manager at Jack Daniels Volkswagen, looked out Tuesday night to see the man’s Corolla stranded on the concrete divider between Broadway and the highway. What Chittum didn’t know was that the Jersey Shore driver had been reported missing earlier. He just knew that he was in serious trouble. The man apparently made a left instead of a right out of the furniture store lot next to the dealership and was h…

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by Jerry DeMarco
Business
Legendary NJ Snack Factory May Close Legendary NJ Snack Factory May Close
Legendary NJ Snack Factory May Close Can you name the company that produces these snack favorites: Chips Ahoy!, Belvita, Oreo cookies, Lorna Doone, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuit crackers, Fig Newtons and Wheat Thins? After six decades of baking these products in Fair Lawn, Nabisco is considering closing its New Jersey factory. The Nabisco factory that opened along Route 208 in 1958, now a division of Mondelēz International, Inc., might be closing soon, according to company officials. NO SURPRISE: Nabisco's most popular snackNabisco As the beverage and snack company moves to economize and modernize, the Fair Lawn …

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by Jon Craig
Police & Fire
Woman Fires Gun During Brawl In South Hackensack Parking Lot, Officer Rescues Victim Woman Fires Gun During Brawl In South Hackensack Parking Lot, Officer Rescues Victim
Woman Fires Gun During Brawl In South Hackensack Parking Lot, Officer Rescues Victim A fight between two women that began on Route 80 ended in a South Hackensack parking lot before dawn Saturday with one of them firing a handgun several times before a nearby officer rushed to the scene and rescued the victim, authorities said. The Passaic County women were returning from Yonkers, where Samantha Polanco works as a deejay, when they began arguing on westbound Route 80 around 4 a.m., Detective Sgt. James Donatello said. The 2017 BMW 3 pulled into a parking lot in an industrial area just off the highway, where the dispute got physical, Donatello said. Polanco, 23, fired a 9mm …

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by Jerry DeMarco