After 60 years of baking its famed cheesecakes in New York City, Junior’s is moving its baking operation across the river and into New Jersey.

The New York Times reports the restaurant, which has been in Brooklyn since 1950 and has expanded to three other locations since then, has started baking in Burlington. The new, 103,000-square-foot facility replaces a considerably smaller one in Maspeth, Queens that has been around for the last 15 years.

By July, most of the restaurant’s cakes and confections will be made at the Burlington bakery, according to the newspaper.

Alan Rosen, grandson of Junior’s founder Harry Rosen, tells the Times the change of venue won’t affect cake quality, and says the new cakes are “actually coming out better.”

“Just trust me, O.K.?” he said in a phone interview with the newspaper. “As my grandfather is looking down on me, I tested cheesecakes made in New Jersey yesterday and they are identical to the ones we make in Brooklyn.” 

Hazmat crews responded to a Mercer County water filtration plant Wednesday morning for a chlorine leak inside the facility.

The incident occurred around 5:45 a.m. in the Trenton Water Works plant located on Route 29 near the Calhoun Street Bridge, according to officials.

SkyForce10 was over the scene as firefighters suited up to enter the building.

There are no reported injuries.

Authorites said they are investigating the cause of the leak, which was placed under control by 6:45 a.m.

A similar hazmat incident occurred at this same facility on March 27.  Crews responded after an alarm, set to sound when there is a chlorine leak in the building, went off.  No one was hurt and there was no threat to the water supply.

Ride-sharing service UberX provided its millionth ride in Philadelphia since launching in October, despite safety concerns from the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which considers the service an illegal taxi operation.

Unlike the company’s regulated black car service, which came to the city in May 2012, UberX matches passengers to drivers using their personal cars through an electronic smartphone app.

While the service won a conditional two-year license to operate throughout most parts of the state, the agreement excludes Philadelphia. The PPA considers UberX an unlicensed taxi service and has consistently fined drivers and impounded their vehicles.

But Philly passengers continue to order UberX taxis as the company claims to bring greater economic opportunity and safety throughout the city.

UberX welcomes more than a thousand new drivers each month and drivers have earned more than $9 million in the last six months, according to the company’s report.

The report estimates the service is even expected to ring in more than $50 million by the end of this year.

With most ride requests peaking when DUI fatality rates are at their highest, the company also claims to help promote safe and reliable transportation.

Since Uber’s launch in 2012, DUI arrests in the city have decreased by 11.5% through 2014, according to the Pennsylvania State Police Uniform Crime Reporting System.

“We’re dedicated to improving the communities we serve and look forward to the impact we’ll continue to make as we march toward the next million trips,” the company’s statement said.

The family of a Temple University graduate who was beaten to death in Old City will receive the largest settlement of its kind in city history against the owners of two Philadelphia bars where the man’s killers — two who were underage — were served alcohol before the killing.

The family of Kevin Kless will receive a $7-million settlement — $1 million from the former Lucy’s Hat Shop on Market Street in Old City and $6 million from G Lounge on 17th Street in Rittenhouse — that will be paid out by the defunct bars' insurance companies.

Kless was trying to hail a cab at 4th and Chestnut streets in the early hours of Jan. 14, 2012 when a car pulled up and an argument began. Kenneth Enriquiz-Santiago, Steven Ferguson, and Felix Carrillo got out of the car and began to punch and kick Kless. Investigators said Ferguson delivered a severe, closed-fist blow to the right side of Kless' head.

Kless died a short time later. The Temple University Fox School of Business grad was 23.

"The greatest horror for any parent is to lose a child," said attorney Robert J. Mongeluzzi of Center City Philadelphia-based law firm Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky, P.C. "There is no lawsuit that can ever give them back what they really want.

The three men later pleaded guilty to their roles in the killing — Ferguson getting the most severe punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

Mongeluzzi's firm filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the three convicts and the two bars. The suit alleged that multiple witnesses said Lucy’s and G Lounge both served the men — including Enriquiz-Santiago and Carillo who were underage at the time — to the point of “visible intoxication.”

"Our son would be alive today if those bars — their managers and their employees — had just followed the law, starting with denying entry to minors,” said John and Kendall Kless, Kevin’s parents, in a news release. “We intend to ensure that all bar owners understand that if they serve underage or intoxicated customers who cause harm, they will be held accountable and could be put out of business. We hope that this lawsuit will spur the industry to follow the laws, which are in place for a reason, and spare any other family from suffering the devastating, preventable loss we have endured.”

Dram Shop legislation, which holds bar owner responsible for serving alcohol to visibly intoxicated or underage patrons, allowed for the suit.

The law firm announced the historic settlement — believed to be the biggest of its kind in Philadelphia — Wednesday afternoon.

“In Kevin’s name, they have successfully and resoundingly delivered a message to the two bar-defendants, Lucy’s Hat Shop and G Lounge, that if you serve underage, drunken patrons, and they leave your bar and commit a heinous crime, you will be held accountable for your actions,” said Mongeluzzi.

Mongeluzzi said the bars maintained that their management and employees did nothing wrong to lead to Kless' death.

Lucy’s Hat Shop is no longer open after closing to give way for a construction project and G Lounge came under new ownership late last year under the re-branded name "1925."

"We couldn't have gotten any more than the $7 million we got," said Mongeluzzi, noting that a jury still could have ruled for more money in the case but the closed bars wouldn't have any more money in the bank.

This wasn't the only type of suit against Lucy's the same bar was named in a lawsuit where a Temple Law student allegedly shot another man after being served booze at Lucy's. Mongeluzzi said that case was resolved confidentially in 2014.

Mongeluzzi fears another lawsuit against an Old City bar is unfortunately inevitable.

"It's a problem of epidemic proportion," he said. "It's only a matter of time until someone is catastrophically injured or killed."

Police are on the lookout for a potential lurer in eastern Pennsylvania after a 9-year-old girl reported being approached by a woman in a sport-utility vehicle Monday afternoon.

The girl was walking home from school on Kossuth Street near Roosevelt Street in Freemansburg, Northampton County at 3:30 p.m. when she was approached by a woman in a white SUV, police said. The woman, who was described as having gray hair and large black-rimmed glasses, asked the girl if she wanted a ride home, and the girl declined.

According to the girl's mother, it was the first time she had allowed her daughter to walk to and from school. The mother gave her daughter a cell phone and explicitly warned her about strangers, and was shocked when her daughter came home crying.

Police said the girl's 12-year-old brother was half a block behind his sister, and upon catching up with her, the woman in the SUV drove off.

Both kids gave the same description of the woman: gray hair, large black-rimmed glasses and a dog in the back of the car, police said. The elementary school notified parents and police have stepped up patrols in the area.

If you have any information on the incident, please call Freemansburg Police at 610-866-2221.

A group of local Girl Scouts are on the brink of losing their home just as they gear up to compete for a world championship.

“Our move out date is June 1,” said Erin McCullough, 17, one of the founding members of the Tin Mints -- a Girl Scouts Patrol focused on a shared interest in Robotics. “We are being kicked out and the [Granite Run Mall] is being demolished.”

The Ridley High School junior, along with nearly 40 other girls from Delaware and Chester counties, spend hours after school tinkering with metal rails, motors, wheels and computer hardware in a nearly 5,000-square-foot empty store in the shopping center.

“We are marrying the relationship between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and girl scouts,” she said.

Seven teams now make up the Tin Mints -- three for students in kindergarten through 3rd grade, three for 4th through 8th grade girls and the sole high school team. The girls raise money year-round to cover $45,000 in annual expenses. The money pays for utilities at the donated space – about $8,000 a year, tools and technology, team uniforms, travel expenses and registration fees – some that cost more than $15,000.

Cookie sales help. And the team also gets donations for "flocking."

“Someone pays us to put a bunch of pink flamingo lawn ornaments on your lawn in the middle of the night and then when you wake up you see this happy surprise,” said Erin, who added the team has also turned to online fundraising.

Despite the monetary concerns, Erin and her nine teammates were not distracted from their goal of developing and building a championship level robot, which they named Rosie III in honorof Rosie the Riveter.

“We did some nights at the mall where we had three mentors and five or six kids overnight where they just took an hour nap in that final week,” explained Erin’s dad, Joe McCullough, who coaches the team. “You are really working under real world challenges of engineering – time constraints, financial constraints.”

The Tin Mints were partnered with two “alliance” teams for the Queen City Regional match in Cincinnati earlier this month. The trio used their robots to stack six totes and then top the tower with a recycling can.

“This year’s game is entirely about teamwork and we really pushed that,” Erin explained.

With their partners, the Girl Scout Patrol earned the highest score. “It was like the Super Bowl… unbelievable excitement. The ones that were not involved in the match rushed the field,” Joe said. “It is that energy, that adrenaline -- it is still there even if it is a robot.”

Now they are taking Rosie to St. Louis for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Championship in St.Louis, where 17,000 youngsters from around the U.S., as well as Mexico, Canada, England, China, Japan and Israel, face off.

The Tin Mints have raised the necessary funds to travel and compete in St.Louis, but the father-daughter duo is focused on making sure the team has a space and enough money to sustain the team long-term.

“When we are back in town, the plan at that point is to hit the streets to see if anyone has any space to offer us,” Joe said.

“I started it and I want to keep it going,” Erin added. “They are my girls.”

A local dentist was arrested after he allegedly gave drugs illegally to his wife and employees.

Dr. Chad Gretzula, 44, and his wife Rebecca Gretzula, 32, are accused of distributing drugs, including fentanyl and hydrocodone at their dental practice in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.

“This is a case about a doctor recklessly abusing his license and supplying drugs to an addict,” said Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan. “The fact that the doctor and addict were husband and wife is a stark reminder about the destructive power of these opiates.”

Investigators say Dr. Gretzula illegally prescribed drugs for his wife and other members of his office staff. Rebecca Gretzula was using up to 500 pills of hydrocodone per month and injecting herself with fentanyl while the couple’s children were playing in their home on the 2100 block of Yellow Springs Road in Malvern, Pennsylvania, according to officials.

Investigators said she often locked herself in the bathroom inside her home while injecting herself so that her four children couldn’t enter.

“A mother was willing to use hydrocodone and shoot up fentanyl while she was supposed to be caring for her children,” Hogan said. “Sadly this is neither the first nor the last family to be destroyed by these powerful prescription drugs.”

Dr. Gretzula was the managing partner of Absolute Oral Surgery, P.C. on East Lancaster Avenue in Berwyn. His wife worked as a sedation nurse at the practice and would administer sedation and anesthesia. She allegedly filled the fentanyl bottles with saline solution after using the drugs, returned the bottles to the office and then used the saline-filled bottles to sedate her patients.

During an investigation, officials learned Dr. Gretzula wrote prescriptions for drugs for his wife, two staff members and a juvenile. The prescriptions included hydrocodone, Xanax, Norco, Dilaudid and Opana, Schedule II narcotics which are highly addictive and often create a physical and psychological dependence, officials said.

Investigators said Gretzula did not have a doctor-patient relationship with his wife, staff members or the juvenile and was prescribing the drugs “well outside the scope of any acceptable medical standard.”

Gretzula allegedly wrote prescriptions in his wife’s maiden name with a false address in order to bypass protocol. Police also say he often picked up the drugs for his wife, arguing with pharmacies that refused to allow him to prescribe to his wife and lied to pharmacies about whether the drugs were for her.

He also stole drugs from his office for his wife’s personal use, police said.

On April 9, officials executed search warrants at Gretzula’s home as well as his practice. Police say they found 18 empty prescription bottles for various drugs written for Gretzula’s wife, three unopened 20 milliliter bottles of fentanyl, six empty 20 milliliter bottles of fentanyl, saline syringes and drug paraphernalia. They also seized ten bottles of fentanyl, prescriptions and other drug paraphernalia from Absolute Oral Surgery.

Dr. Gretzula’s Pennsylvania State Medical License is temporarily suspended pending a hearing and his DEA registration was forfeited.

If you have any additional information on the case, please call Detective Michael Sesher of the Easttown Police Department at 610-341-9780 or John Hamrick, Public Information Officer for the DEA, at 215-800-7761.

Police are investigating a possible murder mystery near Philadelphia International Airport after the body of a man was found inside a burning car Wednesday afternoon.

Fire crews were called to the intersection of Hog Island and Fort Mifflin Road in Southwest Philadelphia around 3:30 p.m. for a report of a car fire. When they arrived they found a fully-engulfed Honda Accord. After they extinguished the flames, they discovered the body of an unidentified man in the driver's seat charred to the bones as well as an empty gas can in the trunk.

Police are working to identify the victim but consider his death suspicious.

"We can't tell the circumstances of the incident," said Philadelphia Police Lieutenant John Walker. "There are obviously no cameras out here and we have no witnesses at this point."

The intersection where the car was found is located near active runways of Philly International. Fort Mifflin Road goes through an industrial area surrounding the airport used mostly by package delivery trucks and area workers.

The car was removed from the scene around 9 p.m. Investigators say the tags on the vehicle are connected to an address in South Philadelphia but so far that's the only clue they have.

If you have any information on the incident, please call Philadelphia Police.

A New Jersey Township police department is reaching out to citizens for assistance in identifying people who are jumping on and damaging cars in the area.

Gene J. Di Filippo, Edgewater Park Township's Police Chief, posted on the department's Facebook page on April 7 regarding the "putting them in a coffin" fad that has gone viral recently.

Di Filippo cited nighttime damage to vehicles in the areas of North Garden Boulevard, Ivy Street, and the Woodlane Crossing Apartments as examples of this "ridiculously stupid act."

"Putting them in a coffin" refers to someone who jumps and lands flat on a surface, commonly a car parked on the street. It has become popular on social media sites such as YouTube and Vine.

Curfew in Edgewater Park is 10 p.m. according to the post, but the department only has two patrol cars out at those hours to cover a township of around 8,000 people that spreads just over three square miles.

Di Filippo added that the eyes and ears of Edgewater Park citizens would be integral to catching and charging anyone involved in these offenses.

Police are searching for graffiti artists accused of defacing businesses at the Jersey Shore. 

The “Succo” graffiti tag turned up on a consignment shop’s truck in Barnegat Township, New Jersey as well as several other buildings in the town on March 30. Only days earlier a video surfaced on Youtube showing someone using the same tag and another person vandalizing an abandoned business in the township. Both of their faces are blurred in the clip.

“We work so hard for so little and you’re here and you’re trying to just destroy what we have and advertise it and be proud of it,” said Tracy Corcino, the owner of the consignment shop. “That makes it worse.”

Police told NBC10 they’re tracking down the people in the video as well as the owner of an Instagram page that showed the graffiti.

“It’s very brazen for individuals to do such a thing, to post such videos online of themselves committing the acts,” said Barnegat Township Police Sergeant Jeff Ryan. “Obviously it does expose them to a point.”

NBC10 reached out to the owner of the Instagram account but we have not yet heard back from him. Corcino says she also reached out to him.

“I asked him how he could do that to a small business and his response was, ‘you went all out of your way to find little old me. I’m honored,’” Corcino said.

Corcino says her truck will remain defaced because her business doesn’t have the money to repaint it.

If you have any information on the graffiti, please call Barnegat Township Police at 609-698-5000.
 

Local residents are concerned about the safety of a Pennsylvania bridge over the busiest passenger railway in the country that appears to be supported by wood planks.

Thousands of AMTRAK and SEPTA passengers go under the Market Street Bridge on State Road 452 in Marcus Hook. It’s one of more than 450 structurally-deficient bridges in the Philadelphia area. Under the bridge sits exposed steel, crumbling concrete and stacks of wood pinched between its edges.

“I noticed the decaying structure with the boards stacked underneath and thought it was pretty crazy,” said Eric Schaeffer.

Schaeffer snapped a picture under the bridge and noticed the wood in the corner of the frame.

“You got steel and cement holding up cars and trucks that drive across here every day and you put boards under it,” he said.

The NBC10 Investigators reached out to PennDOT to find out just how safe the bridge actually is.

“The bridge is safe,” said Charles Davies, PennDOT’s chief engineer for the Philadelphia region. “It needs a lot of repair and it needs replacement.”

Davies told NBC10 the wood planks are not load-bearing and they’re not actually holding up the bridge.

“They’re wedged in so they could be load-bearing just in case we have a failure,” he said.

PennDOT classifies the Market Street Bridge as a “Priority 1 Repair,” meaning it should be repaired within six months. The most recent inspection in August, 2014 concluded the bridge’s structural condition is “poor” while its deck is “serious.” The report also lists 12 maintenance recommendations.

“It confirms the necessity of replacing this bridge as soon as possible,” Davies said.

A spokesperson for AMTRAK told NBC10 they were “aware of the condition of the Market Street Bridge” and that they make “periodic visual inspections to ensure the safety of trains passing underneath.”

Schaeffer hopes repairs to the bridge are made quickly.

“It doesn’t look like it has long for this world to me,” he said.

PennDOT officials say they inspect the bridge once a year and inspect the wood planks every three months. They also say they plan to replace the bridge this year though they don’t have a specific start date.