Crowne Plaza hotel in Secaucus--Apparently dumping sewage laced water into the Hackensack River

Here's a story of a fine corporate community citizen; According to the New Jersey Attorney General, the Crowne Plaze hotel in Secaucus was dumping raw sewage from the hotel into the Hackensack River via a special pipe system the hotel staff had set up. Hackensack Riverkeeper Bill Sheehan, one of the heroes of this story (the other being the citizen who stopped Sheehan ont he street and told him of the nefarious piping), found out that the Crowne Plaza employed a underground tunnel system in which raw sewage leaking from hotel pipes was flushed into the river.

According to New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram:

"...hotel staff rigged a pump in a grate-covered pit beside the hotel to run the sewage-laced wastewater through a hose and across a grassy area to the riverbank."

Assholes.

Of course the Crowne Plaza is simply shocked by the news. They claim they had no idea the pipes carrying the sewage from their place to the river existed. They issued the boilerplate 'no way--we simply can't believe this since we're such upstanding community citizens' load of legalese crap. They even had the guts to trot out the "but but *sniff* if we're forced to pay the huge fines that could come down we're not sure if we could continue to employ the 200 Hudson County residents we do now" teary-eyed self pity.

Again, assholes.

Go get 'em Anne Milgram and thank you Bill Sheehan, you both are doing the public proud on this one.

Johnny was darned near one of the faces of the Ticketmaster/Springsteen mess--NBC Channel 4 contacted him for an interview on the TeeVee about it

First things first, Johnny (warning, namedropping ahead) was contacted today by Lily Norton of NBC's Channel 4 in New York City because she knows Johnny has his keyboard fingers on the pulse of New Jersey. Plus she can check Google's blog search to see Johnny's outraged response to the not yet existent tickets going on sale for the Bruce Springsteen shows later this fall at the Meadowlands being snapped up by ticket brokers. Ms. Norton contacted Johnny who called her back but sadly he was just too darned busy (see the love we have for you citizens, we're putting you before television interviews, YOU come before teeve fame and things of real value) to work in an interview today. Funny how that works, any other day he would have been happy to give a New Jersey angle on the dirtbag business practices of Ticketmaster. Ah well, another time. Johnny's a busy man.

Now, for the important part of this story, New Jersey State Attorney General Anne Milgram has filed lawsuits against three ticket brokers, one from Morris County here in the Garden State, for tickets to the Springsteen shows that they did not physically posses and could not provide at the time of sale yet were selling anyway.

Let's make sure we get the scumbag ticket broker companies the credit they deserve here; Riverdale-based broker Select-A-Ticket.com, along with Chicago-based Orbitz Worldwide and Connecticut-based Ticket Network Inc., were ALL sued for not having the seats as we mentioned AND Orbitz and Ticket Network were sued for selling seats that do not exist at Giants Stadium.

Attorney General Milgram's suit seeks to ban brokers from advertising and selling seats they don't have, pay civil penalties and criminal fines and also seeks to REVOKE Select-A-Tickets license.

Thank you Attorney General Milgram, on behalf of all that is good and decent, we all thank you. Too long ticket brokers (and if they can conduct business like this why do we arrest scalpers?) have ruined going to concerts and sporting events for the masses, along with their partner in crime, Ticketmaster.

If you'd maybe like somebody to sit on an jury at some point against these jagoffs, contact Lily Norton at NBC channel 4, she knows where to find Johnny.