Donald Wittkowski

The Tahiti Inn and related property are up for sale for $13.5 million. The Gallelli family has owned the Tahiti Inn since 1989, but now they are weighing their options by placing the motel, an apartment building and three adjacent parcels used as two parking lots on the market.

City Councilman and local businessman Jody Levchuk is convinced Ocean City needs a lot more parking – perhaps hundreds of more spaces. However, Levchuk isn’t sure whether the city should build a new parking garage or create more parking in some other way. He calls that “the million-dollar question.” The city is expected to hire a professional consultant to conduct a parking study and provide some answers.

Ocean City’s police chief is urging parents to keep their kids under control amid an increase in juveniles “recklessly” riding their electric bikes and regular bicycles through town, including two crashes in recent weeks. In a letter sent Friday to parents and students in the Ocean City School District, Chief Jay Prettyman stressed that police will hand out tickets to juveniles who speed on their bikes or violate other traffic laws.

Ocean City is dealing with an escalation of underage drinking and fighting by rowdy groups of teenagers that have turned some stretches of the beach into their own personal “nightclub.” “The crowds are larger than last year, the kids are drinking more than last year and there is more fighting than last year,” Police Chief Jay Prettyman said. The plan so far is to keep the partying teenagers on the beaches rather than having them spill out onto the family-friendly Boardwalk, where they could do even more damage, city officials say.

Voting 4-3 after a lengthy debate Thursday night, City Council approved an amended 2022 municipal budget that adds a $770,000 payment to settle a financial dispute with the city’s trash contractor. The payment to trash hauler Gold Medal Environmental will result in a small tax increase for Ocean City property owners, a development that drew objections from the three Council members who voted against the $89.6 million budget.

Ocean City is getting ready to welcome some monarchs. But not the type of royalty embodied by the late Grace Kelly, who called Ocean City her second home before gaining fame as the Academy Award-winning actress and Princess of Monaco. These “royals” are the majestic monarch butterflies that will stop in Ocean City to fuel up on succulent milkweed plants during their migratory journey to Mexico in coming months. Ocean City is creating a “waystation” for the delicate black-and-orange monarchs by building a new butterfly garden stocked with milkweed and other plants that the insects find delectable.

Ocean City's preseason beach tag sales for 2022 suggest that the city is primed for another banner summer. Preseason sales generated $2,229,600 in beach tag revenue, just short of the record figure in 2021, newly released figures show.

A senior executive with Playland’s Castaway Cove urged city officials Thursday night to remove a Boardwalk ramp that is blocking construction deliveries for a rebuilding project at the popular amusement park. Brian Hartley, Playland’s vice president, said deliveries of concrete, steel and lumber can’t be made at this time because the newly installed ramp at 10th Street has cut off access.

Cape May County is touting itself as the “Comeback Kid” of New Jersey’s tourism industry after fully recovering from COVID-19 shutdowns that sent spending and the number of visitors in the seashore communities plummeting in 2020.

Front gateway? Or back entrance? The 34th Street corridor’s aesthetically challenged appearance stands in sharp contrast to its status as Ocean City’s second-busiest entryway. Ocean City officials and local residents agree that the 34th Street-Roosevelt Boulevard artery is dramatically in need of a facelift to make it a more inviting entrance into town.