Star-Ledger Death Watch - Peanuts!

On Wednesday, the Ledger, which normally avoids coverage of the Shore region (when's the last time the paper ran any substantive coverage of Atlantic City and gaming-related issues?), ran an item about Barnacle Bill's restaurant in Rumson, a burger bar which like a lot of others offers free peanuts to patrons and expects them to toss the shells into the floor.

The story noted that, in response to complaints by people that they'd both slipped on peanut shells and had concerns about their children having peanut allergies (what, they couldn't just slap the kids' hands away?), Barnacle Bill's would no longer offer free peanuts.

Now, this story was in fact the Ledger's LEAD business story for Wednesday. Really. But it was also covered by Middletown's version of Patch and its somewhat livelier local competitor Red Bank Green. As an item for such sites, the topic of Barnacle Bill's is fine. As occasion for a "business story?" There wasn't even, by way of at least  a half-hearted display of journalistic energy, any mention of whether Barnacle Bill's has in fact ever been sued by patrons who, uh, "slipped."

This exercise in legumed triviality suggests to me, as usual, that the hands on the wheel at the Star-Ledger simply no longer care terribly much, they just go through the motions. Day after slow news day. There are probably rodents  hanging round Barnacle Bill's. There are definitely mice at work in the editorial offices of the Ledger.