SAVVY MAINLINE

it's what you want to know

KOP Mall shooting; Shopping & school news; A celebrity house call; ‘What to Eat Now!’ takeaways and more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Just in time for Halloween: scary times at the King of Prussia Mall.

Last Saturday afternoon, a woman returning to her car in the garage between Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor was held up at gunpoint. Police say an armed man hopped in her backseat as she opened her car and pointed a gun at her head, demanding her purse.

He then sped off in the SUV he had allegedly just hijacked from an 87-year-old man in Delaware.

So, yeah, an armed robbery at 3:30 p.m. on a weekend afternoon at one of the busiest malls in the country.

But wait; it gets worse.

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Tredyffrin man’s shocking death; Revolting charges in Radnor; Lights Out at People’s Light; Remembering domestic violence victim Ellen Robb & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

“We’re looking at it from all angles.”

That’s all Philadelphia police will say about their investigation into the stunning death of high-profile Tredyffrin resident Philip Reitnour, whose body was pulled from the Schuylkill last week.

Perhaps best known as the local guy who went on Shark Tank, Reitnour, 58, had reportedly been shot once in the forehead. His corpse was found floating under the Walnut Street Bridge Thursday morning.

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Heroin with a happy ending; MOMS Demand (gun) Action; Crowded schools; Bistro boomlet & weekend preview

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

What a difference a decade makes.

Hang out with the Tankels’ in their Malvern living room and you’d never know this observant Quaker family was nearly destroyed by drugs.

Teasing and cracking jokes, they clearly love being together. Like the “normal” Main Line family they weren’t – for six harrowing years.

Truly, if walls could talk, the Tankels’ home would scream: of stolen money and pilfered pills, of school expulsions and shouting matches, of multiple car crashes and surprise drug tests, of Visine and baggies, of trust faithfully extended and repeatedly betrayed. All of it fallout from Eric Tankel’s addiction to pot, to pain pills, and ultimately, to heroin.

Six of his close friends died from their addictions.

But Eric, thankfully, is very much with us.

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Devon Yard beckons brides & mitzvahs; Saving sex-trafficked girls; Flamingos trending; Shopping scoops; A SAVVY Save the Date & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

The dirt is flying and the bulldozers are busy at the old Waterloo Gardens, now a bustling construction site for Devon Yard.

Good thing, too.

Because URBN is already booking weddings and mitzvahs – from Sept. 1, 2018 onward – at the Yard’s splashy event venue, Terrain Gardens.

Never mind that the project took more than four years to get OK’d; URBN’s confident it can have the whole shebang up and running in less than 12 months.

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Social Edition: Radnor Hunt Concours, Hava NaGrilla, Kendall’s Crusade, Help Us Adopt & LBBC previews, Help Hope Live, Baker Industries & other summer shindigs

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

More than 3,000 collectors and car buffs oohed and aahed at a stunning parade of vintage vehicles assembled at the Malvern show grounds Sept. 10. Zipping along in its 21st year, the Radnor Hunt Concours is now internationally recognized as one of the world’s premier automotive shows.

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Summer ’17 Catch-up: Life Time KOP’s sinkhole; remembering Radnor’s N. Mora; Skinny Pizza (?!); Nova’s new Inn; Crime news; Fall Classic; Mt. Joy & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

/>By all accounts, things were going swimmingly at the area’s fanciest new fitness “resort,” Life Time Athletic in KOP.

Until they weren’t.

On Saturday, Aug. 5, staff noticed the water level in the indoor pool had suddenly dropped a few feet and the decking in one corner had collapsed.

Uh-oh.

The club promptly closed the pool, drained the water and demolished it.

The culprit? A sinkhole – although management’s e-mails to members never used the “s” word, referring only to the pool’s “inadvertent” closure and “required repairs.”

Not the sort of splash Life Time envisioned when opened for its first summer season in June.

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Movie theatre to Tredyffrin (?!); Devon pot dispensary’s surprising CEO; New frat suit; True Food Kitchen & new Wayne BYOB; Pun’s to Ardmore; Devon Yard & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Dim the lights and pass the popcorn: The Main Line might get its first luxury movie house.

The owner of the Swedesford Plaza Shopping Center in Tredyffrin is in serious talks with an upscale theater company to turn the dowdy old Pathmark into a state-of-the-art cinema experience.

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Social edition: Loretta Swit in Wayne, Jazz for Home of the Sparrow, Appleford Summer Solstice, Natural Lands’ Stardust, DAR, ML School Night & City Year soirées & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

M*A*S*H fans flocked to the Cottage at Valley Forge Flowers to meet Loretta Swit, aka Hot Lips Houlihan.

The star: A longtime artist and animal rights activist, Swit, now 79, came to Wayne June 29 to sign copies of Switheart: The Watercolour Artistry & Animal Activism of Loretta Swit. Fetched from New York by a Valley Forge Flowers staffer, Swit was reportedly “lovely” and raved about the antiques and collectibles at the Cottage.

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Chesco DA Hogan writes extraordinary ‘letter to editor’ detailing and defending his handling of Conestoga football hazing case

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Chester County DA Tom Hogan today took the extraordinary step of releasing a six-page letter to the public, seeking to “set the record straight” in the locker room sodomy case.

The DA has been under fire from football parents, coaches and some community members for his office’s handling of the case. To defend his actions, Hogan asked for and was given court permission to detail his office’s handling of the investigation and prosecution.

His letter, in its entirety, follows:

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New sexual abuse suit vs. Conestoga – most damaging of all? Plus, Tredici debuts, two Nova bars close in Bryn Mawr; Catholic ed back in Berwyn & much more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

The Tredyffrin/Easttown School District is absorbing yet another fusillade – this one, an utterly explosive federal lawsuit that, in effect, blames Conestoga, its culture and staff for the months-long sexual abuse of a 15-year-old female student by 67-year-old TV studio aide Arthur Phillips.

Revolting.

To bolster its case, the suit details T/E’s “recent history of sex-related scandals”:

  • School aide/coach Christine Towers’ affair with a 15-year-old male student. Arrested exactly one year to the day before Phillips, Towers is in jail for her crimes.
  • The “No Gay Thursday” locker room hazing allegations that officials attributed to lax supervision.
  • The middle school sexting/cyberbullying charges.

The suit says the three scandals show a “pattern of deliberate and reckless indifference to signs of ongoing sexual harassment and sexual abuse” in the district.

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