The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 3

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1981 Philadelphia Inquirer 3 METROPOLITAN- Holmtsburg Met Ed accused of laxity NRC finds gaps in TMI reports S- Philadelphia InquirefPETER FALCHfcTTA fn' iS 4 111 i i I II -1 Their fantasy: A Tacony with no smut dealers a a ff M. 1 vim I 1 J. ,4 By Mark Bowden Inquirer Stall Writer Officials of Metropolitan Edison operator of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant, were reproved yesterday by regulatory officials for failing to adequately notify state and federal agencies about exactly what was happening during the March 28, 1979, accident there. But in a report released yesterday, federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) investigators found no evidence that officials of the utility, known as Met Ed, deliberately withheld information from public agencies.

The NRC did charge that TMI plant operators at the height of the accident did not understand what was happening. Technical information about crucial instrument readings and warning signals were not reported to public health and safety officials because Met Ed lacked a method to collect and. relay such information, investigators found. "Met Ed as a licensee has a unique and direct responsibility for protecting the health and safety of the public during an emergency," wrote Victor Stello director of the NRC's office of inspection and enforcement. It is in this particular area that on the day of the TMI (Unit) 2 accident, there was a clear failure in Met Ed's response." In the report, Met Ed was cited for failing to comply with federal regulations governing nuclear power plants.

No fines accompanied the citations, however, because in January 1980, the NRC fined Met Ed the maximum allowed by law $155,000 for other violations. The company has paid that fine. "It's a pretty incriminating report," said one top NRC official. "A lot of things have changed within the company since the accident, but the citations concerning the behavior of company officials and plant operators during the accident reflect rather seriously on the quality of training for their key personnel. I think it might strengthen the hand of groups that are challenging Met Ed's request to restart Unit 1 (the TMI reactor that was not damaged during the accident)." Most of the specific charges against Met Ed in the NRC report are being addressed in an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearing now being conducted in Harrisburg.

Met Ed is seeking approval to restart Unit 1. A copy of the NRC report and citation were delivered yesterday to the board chairman to be included in the VS it A ,1,1 By Maida Odom Inquirer Stall Writer City Councilwoman Joan Kra-jewski, her lower jaw jutting with determination, thrust a fist into the air and exhorted her audience to "get mad." "Isn't the stuff we have on television bad enough?" she asked. Unless residents of the Tacony section of the city act promptly, she said, "it's going to be sad, sad, sad." The immediate object of her ire was Fantasy Island, an adult bookstore on State Road north of Cott-man Avenue. But she and the approximately 60 persons in the audience mostly middle-aged women, a few vocal men, two priests and four nuns regard Fantasy Island as only a small part of a larger problem: unchecked smut. So when those gathered Monday night in the basement gymnasium of Our Lady of Consolation Roman Catholic Church decided to band together to form a new group called Citizens Against Smut, they immediately let it be known that they would take on anyone or anything they believe is contributing to the problem.

After Assistant District Attorney Thomas Watkins warned them about judges who "get me in court and try to tell me about some smut dealer's First Amendment rights," Krajewski promised to help campaign against what she called "these goody-goody judges." Fantasy Island was among six adult book stores and three movie houses raided two weeks ago when District Attorney Edward G. Rendell, responding to community complaints, began enforcing a month-old state law permitting authorities to arrest anyone who sells or displays pornographic literature. Despite the raid, which resulted in the arrest of a Fantasy Island clerk, the store is still operating, and Krajewski is convinced that only continuing community pressure can force it to close. To that end, Citizens Against Smut made plans at its organizational meeting to picket the store, beginning Tuesday. While the residents were meeting, business went on as usual at the bookstore.

A steady stream of customers mostly young men came in, changed their dollar bills for quarters and disappeared into booths to look at peep shows. Regarding the protest meeting, a man who identified himself as the store's owner said: "They can meet if they want to. It's a free country, and they have freedom of speech. "Everything we have here is legitimate," added the man, who refused to give his name (according to city records, the owner is a man named Bernard D'Angelo). As he spoke, he gestured to video cassettes jacketed wih photographs of nude women and bearing titles like Debbie Does Dallas and Ecstasy Girls.

Krajewski has been trying since June to put Fantasy Island out of business. If picketing alone doesn't drive customers away, she suggested Monday night, Tacbny-area residents should bring cameras to take pictures or pretend to take pictures of the store's patrons to embarrass them as they cross the picket line. Tacony, a working-class community, is bounded roughly by the Delaware River on the east, Cot-tman Avenue on the north, Cottage Street and Frankford Avenue on the west and Cheltenham Avenue on the south. Most of the residents live in the brick or stone rowhouses with their bright green or dark red shingled roofs that are prevalent in the city's Northeast. The Rev.

Arthur J. Centrella, pastor of Our Lady of Consolation Church, noted that the area around Fantasy Island included three parishes: St. Bernard's, St. Leo's and Our Lady of Consolation. "Our youth are under tremendous pressure, and sometimes they aren't strong enough.

So we have to fight for them," said Father Centrella, who helped con- Philadelphia Inquim EDWARD J. FREEMAN Fantasy Island bookstore, focal point of a group formed in Tacony to combat smut duct Monday night's meeting. The man who identified himself as the store's owner told a report er that although it would be legal for him to allow 18-year-olds into the store, he restricted admission to persons over 21. "The windows are blocked (with black curtains) so you can't see in," he said. "I'm on a state highway, I'm at least a quarter-mile from any homes, three-quarters (of a) mile from their churches." Fantasy Island is housed in a plain, light brown building, with small flashing lights around the windows, and is surrounded by an industrial park.

The store is at least three to four blocks from any houses. Within a six-block radius, however, there is a Catholic girls' school, a playground and a boys' club. The store's closest neighbor, Red Lion Motor Body Shop, is owned by Louis D'Alessandro, a businessman and for 30 years a community activist in Tacony. "I don't think there's no problem," he said, accusing Krajewski of trying to use the bookstore to further her political ambitions. "If it (the bookstore) was a nuisance, I'd be the first one to complain.

"Look, if the Lord made anything better than sex in this world, he kept it for himself. That store can stay there for 50 years as far as I'm concerned," D'Alessand-ro said as he sat in his office, surrounded by Lions Club certificates of merit and photographs of himself with Joey Bishop, Police Commissioner Morton Solomon and others. "You know, a lot of people didn't know this place was here until she (Krajewski) raised a stink," he added. "She brought 'em business." If so, that was certainly not her aim. "I just want to get it (the store) out of this neighborhood," Krajewski told those at Monday's meeting.

"It's sick, and something has to be done about it. And if we can run them out, it may send a message throughout the city." "These are things we have acknowledged and long since responded to," said Doug Bedell, a company spokesman. Bedell said that most of the key personnel at TMI had been replaced since the accident and that thnro hnH hinn Pnfnrmc in traininrr and operating procedures. Acme and workers agree to wage concessions in contract Drinan tells liberals not to give in union actually won wage increases for all of its members that were slightly less than its settlement with Acme this year 7.6 percent, 7 percent and 6.5 percent. But that contract also provided for two cost-of-living adjustments that eventually paid the workers an additional 78 cents an hour.

The new By Steve Twomcy inquirer Stall Writer Workers in two major Philadelphia supermarket chains, Acme and have agreed overwhelmingly to accept only modest wage increases over the next three years to slow the pace of layoffs and store closings in the ailing food industry. "We gave up pretty much," Wendell Young, president of Ixical 1357 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said in a telephone interview yesterday. But based on what's happening in the industry, we had to downplay the issue of wages." Young had announced two weeks ago that, despite a 12.4 percent inflation rate in 1980, the union would not seek substantial wage increases because the major unionized chains had been hit hard by slackening consumer demand and increased competition from nonunionized independent stores. One major chain, Food Fair already has gone bankrupt, closing 100 Penn Fruit and Pantry Pride stores in the Philadelphia area and laying off 3,000 employees, all members of Local 1.357. In a contract ratified this week, some 1,500 union members who work for will receive a 5 percent wage increase in July, followed by 5 percent in January 1982, 5 percent in July 1982 and 5 percent in January 1983.

And in a contract ratified last week, about 3,500 Acme workers will receive an immediate 8 percent increase, followed by 6 percent increases in each of the next two years. The average union member now earns between $7.50 and $8.50 an hour, according to union officials. Young said that workers would receive less in wages because their chain's financial problems were more severe than Acme's and because the company had agreed to rehire 280 workers who had been laid off. In its last round of negotiations with the chains three years ago, the i ill N- i i if 1P I t-v ipt- if I 4 if 4 I jl 'I contracts have no such adjustment provisions. And because the inflation rate is so high, the percentage salary increases provided for in the new contract will net workers fewer real dollars than they received as a result of the previous contracts, Young said.

Both points underscore the modest wage demands of the union this year, he added. In return for tempering its wage demands, the union won the right to play a greater role in policy-making, so that it can help work out problems in the stores that might otherwise lead to layoffs or closings. In addition, the chains must give the union at least 20 days' notice of any store closing, so that members can begin to seek other employment. By Paul Taylor Inquirer Politics Wrlier The Rev. Robert Drinan, the former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, called on liberals last night to rally around their historic commitment to the underprivileged during an era when "our ideals are more threatened than at any time in our lifetime." Father Drinan, who decided not to seek a sixth term in Congress after Pope John Paul II said that he disapproved of clerics holding political office, urged liberals not to give in to the "get the government off our backs" mood that prevails in the Reagan White House.

Father Drinan spoke to 400 guests at the annual banquet of the local chapter of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) at the Sheraton Hotel. He called on liberals to close ranks behind such endangered programs as food stamps, legal services for the poor, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, Head Start and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Father Drinan scoffed at statements attributed to President Reagan's advisers that poverty had practically disappeared in this He said that 27 million Americans were living below the poverty level, and he noted a recently released report by the Children's Defense Fund saying that 50 percent of all black children would be born into and remain in poverty all their lives. Father Drinan also defended the need for a strong OSHA, noting statistics showing that more Americans died in industrial accidents last year than in any other year in the nation's history. Turning his attention to international affairs, Father Drinan called on the ADA to fight for the human rights policies that were advanced during the Carter administration.

High court rules in Mrs. Paul's case "WO tives called the decision a victory. Assistant District Attorney Eric Henson, who argued the case before the high court, praised the court for taking the issue out of Kremer's hands. But defense attorney Jerome Rich-ter contended that the court set a precedent by giving defendants a chance for a hearing prior to rearrest. "They gave us just what we wanted," Richter said.

Henson said his office had not yet decided whether to rearrest the executives, and he declined to comment on Richter's statement. The justices were in conference yesterday afternoon and could not be reached. The executives David Bohan- non, Richard Wolf and John Majews-ki initially were charged with conspiring to tamper with city sewage meters to understate the amount of pollutants coming from Mrs. Paul's plants. Municipal Court Judge Earl Simmons threw out the charges last month, saying prosecutors had failed to show how the executives personally benefited from the alleged scheme.

When prosecutors appealed that decision and sought to rearrest the three, defense lawyers persuaded Kremer to delay the rearrests pending a hearing. District Attorney Edward G. Rendell appealed that delay to the high court. The sole dissenter to yesterday's decision was Justice Rolf R. Larscn.

By Daniel R. Biddle Inquirer Slo Wrlier The Pennsylvania Supreme Court yesterday blocked Common Pleas Judge I. Raymond Kremer's attempt to delay the rearrests of three Mrs. Paul's Inc. executives accused of conspiring to defraud the city of $258,000 in sewer-use fees.

The high court ruled, 4-1, that Kremer, sitting as a civil court judge, did not have jurisdiction in the criminal case. The court said the Mrs. Paul's executives eventually would get a chance to dispute their rearrests before a criminal-motions judge. Both the district attorney's office and a defense lawyer for the execu Associated Prost MOVING OUT, anti-war activist Philip Berrigan carries his belongings from Montgomery County Prison in Norristown. Berrigan and three others whose trials are pending in connection with a break-in at General Electric's King of Prussia plant were freed yesterday.

County Judge Vincent A. Cirillo agreed to the releases Tuesday night after Berrigan's friends had accused the judge of unfairly keeping the four in custody..