By ERIN CALABRESE and BILL SANDERSON
Posted: 4:38 am
July 19, 2008
Score one for the guidos, blondes and Bennys.
The Jersey Shore mayor who used an official town newsletter to diss Staten Islanders and the other summer visitors who float his little beach burg's economy said yesterday he would apologize to them - and even agreed to a groveling tour of Staten Island's main attractions.
"I'll be doing several of those," Belmar Mayor Ken Pringle replied when asked if he would be issuing mea culpas.
Pringle also is shutting down the taxpayer-backed newsletter in which he slurred the multitudes who rent houses, shop, and pay beach fees in his town.
The move couldn't have come sooner for Ilio Ditrenco, 25, of Great Kills, Staten Island.
"He's not sorry that he said that. He's sorry that he got everybody so pissed off," said Ditrenco, who stayed on home turf yesterday - Staten Island's South Beach.
"Belmar would go broke [without Staten Islanders]. A little town like that thrives on our business."
On Belmar's boardwalk, Staten Islander Samantha DiGiodanni, 18, said Pringle's writings have given her second thoughts about renting a house there next month.
"I always rent a house here, but this August, it might not happen," she said.
The mayor claims he wrote the newsletter with the aim of encouraging summer residents to obey the town's noise and nuisance ordinances.
But instead of advice, the newsletter was packed with snarky reports of renters' misbehavior, such as a tales about blondes who couldn't figure out how to take out the trash and "guidos" who crowd a popular bar.
Pringle also referred to visitors as "Bennys," a weirdly derogatory Jersey Shore sobriquet for people from New York and its suburbs.
SINY, a civic group that promotes Staten Island business and tourism, is organizing Pringle's planned tour, which Executive Director Larry Ambrosino said might take place next week.
One of the first places they hope to take him is to a "nice Italian restaurant" where he might - gasp - have to rub elbows with the "guidos" he trashed, and then maybe for a stroll at the Staten Island Zoo.
And just in case he thinks Staten Island is only full of goombahs, a trip to its Chinese Scholar Gardens could be on the agenda, also.
"He did something dopey. He wasn't thinking, and he thought he was being funny," Ambrosino said of Pringle. "I don't think he ever thought he'd cause this kind of firestorm."
Additional reporting by Melissa Jane Kronfeld and Post Wire Services
