SAVVY MAINLINE

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Ex-Stoga aide admits student sexual assaults; New Bryn Mawr BYOB; Fresh ‘Canvas’ for downsizing boomers; Teegarden dogs; Our Closet; Mister Sprinkle & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Guilty as charged. A former teacher’s aide has admitted to the repeated sexual assault of a Conestoga sophomore – in his school office, his car and her bedroom – during the 2016-2017 school year.

After pleading not guilty at his April arraignment, Arthur Phillips changed his plea to guilty last Tuesday and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison.

If Phillips had been younger, Chester County Judge Patrick Carmody said he wouldn’t have accepted the plea deal. “You’re 67, Do you understand that you may never leave jail, that this might be a life sentence?” he asked the defendant.

Phillips said quietly that he understood.

The judge was clearly disgusted by Phillips’ crimes.

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Democrats win big in T/E & beyond; Longtime Main Line ob-gyn arrested; Stoga, Devon Yard, Ardmore Target & Aronimink updates; Dine local; Shop w/ purpose & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Local Democrats are still pinching themselves – perhaps nowhere more so than in Tredyffrin, where the party’s candidates went 12 for 12 last Tuesday.

A sweep.

Three Democrats ran for township supervisor seats: incumbent Murph Wysocki plus Matt Holt and Kevin O’Nell. ­

All three won.

Four Democrats ran for T/E school board: incumbent Scott Dorsey plus Kyle Boyer, Tina Whitlow and Heather Ward.

All four won. (Whitlow and Ward ousted current board president Doug Carlson and Virginia Lastner.)

So, for the first time in township history, three of seven supes and seven of nine school board directors will be Democrats.

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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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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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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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New reality TV show “Get Real Main Line”; Drugs & dining out in Radnor; Young & Restless at the shore; A Wayne exit, an Ardmore arrival & lots more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Remember when the Main Line was buzzing about a “Real Housewives” show based here?

And how Bravo TV said thanks but no thanks and took their cameras elsewhere?

Because, apparently, we Main Liners are too cookie-cutter and won’t let our highlighted hair down.

Ha.

Little did they know.

Now we’re letting it all hang out – at least some of us are – on “Get Real Main Line,” a reality show that’s been filming for a year and was just picked up by a major network.

“Get Real” stars Toni Filippone, Conestoga Class of ’93, perhaps the Main Line’s mouthiest and funniest lesbian, out and proud, married to Berwyn caterer Meridith Coyle since August 2015.

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Wait til you see what Valley Forge Park’s got cooking; 8 reasons to love new AmRev Museum; Pun’s Toys, LM taxes & Cricket Club news; Saluting Dodo & G. Sills & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Ah, Valley Forge National Historical Park, the Central Park of the Main Line.

Walk, ride or hike its 3,500 acres and you can just smell the history.

But the Park’s not resting on its cherry laurels these days.

Far from it.

Thanks to its newly invigorated nonprofit arm, the Valley Forge Park Alliance, it’s marching forward with dazzling plans that will affect ALL of us – anyone who “recreates” in the park (90 percent of visitors), brings guests there, or even drives through.

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New Mistral, a bold move at KOP Mall; $$ for Stoga’s accused; Gravity Vault rocks Radnor; Queen of Soaps’ new memoir; Retail ups & downs & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

You’ll never guess what just blew in to the King of Prussia Mall.

Legitimately hip dining.

We kid you not.

Twice we visited the new Mistral – named for the stiff “mistral’ winds that clobber the coast of south France.

Twice, we were, well, blown away.

While the usual suspects – Cheesecake Factory, Grand Lux Café, California Pizza Kitchen – are corporate, aka manufactured for the masses, Mistral is:

  1. privately owned
  2. relatively intimate
  3. chef driven. (A fancy way of saying that an onsite chef creates and executes the menu. No corporate recipes.)
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