O.B. law with tragic origin back on table

He wasn’t even supposed to work on Christmas Day. But Neil P. Pannetta Jr., an Old Bridge resident, was a hard worker and a loyal employee who didn’t like to disappoint. Sure it was an overnight shift Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, but his gas station employer intended to send him for training as a night manager and he needed money to pay for Christmas gifts and a new car.

So when his boss asked him to work the overnight shift, the 18-year-old Pannetta went off to his job as a gas station attendant at the Sayreville Hess Station on Route 9.

He was working alone, all by himself for the night at the borough gas station. His parents, Neil and Nancy Pannetta, stopped by after midnight Mass to wish him a Merry Christmas and let him know that dinner would be waiting for him back home when his shift was done.

He never made it home.

Shortly after 3:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, Neil Patrick Henry Pannetta Jr. was shot and killed by a gunman. The killer was allegedly incensed over a family issue, and instead of committing suicide as planned, he shot Pannetta.

“It hit really hard,” said Debra Pannetta Totten, Neil’s sister. “You don’t get over it.”

The Pannetta family was irate that a kid could be allowed to work alone overnight. Neil Pannetta Sr. went from town meeting to town meeting to get municipalities to enact ordinances that require two employees to work overnight at all times. He was successful in getting Sayreville, Edison, Old Bridge and other towns in the area to adopt ordinances, and even went to the state to try and get a law passed.

Debra Pannetta Totten said that second person can make all the difference. Now a Sayreville resident, she said the second worker can call for help or get a description of a criminal if an incident were to occur. It might even make a criminal think twice before committing a crime, she said.

“It will deter someone from robbing a store, a gas station, whatever,” she said. “They’ll see double.”

But after over 25 years on the books, Old Bridge’s ordinance is being revisited for possible changes or repealing.

Under the current ordinance, adopted in 1986, if a business is open between the hours of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., two employees must be on duty and a security system in place that will notify police when a crime is in progress.

The ordinance was passed in the interest “of the protection of employees, patrons and law enforcement officers,” noting that “unprotected and understaffed business and commercial enterprises are prey to the criminal element in our society during the late night and early morning hours.”

But having two employees on duty overnight presents a financial burden for some businesses.

Paying for two employees for every overnight shift would cost about $150,000 a year for Nick Zota and Andy Chaudhari, two Old Bridge residents who own five 7- Eleven stores in the township, according to their attorney William Bajohr.

Bajohr said 7-Eleven requires that they remain open 24 hours, though some receive only two or three visitors an hour during the late night shift.

“You basically pay people to look at each other,” he said. Bajohr said his clients were unaware of the ordinance until recently and received two tickets for having only one person working. Bajohr knew of Pannettta’s murder and called it a “tragedy.” He added that all 7-Eleven employees are taught to forget about any material property in the wake of violent crime.

But while his clients are not looking to put anyone in danger, Bajohr said technology has vastly improved since the ordinance was put in place, noting that his clients can view store surveillance on their iPhones at all times.

“You can see everything going on in the store, as you can monitor it 24 hours a day,” he said.

Old Bridge Township Council President G. Kevin Calogera said he has spoken with Pannetta Totten and that she has raised some legitimate concerns that will be taken seriously by the council.

Calogera said he will have the Township Clerk’s Office get statistics from both sides in anticipation of the first reading of the ordinance at the next council meeting.

“We just need to take an objective look at this,” Calogera said.

But he said that since the ordinance was passed, it has become a “24-hour world,” and as such, this issue needs to be revisited.

On the one hand, Calogera said that Old Bridge is trying to be a business- friendly community. But by mandating that two employees work overnight, many local businesses face a financial burden.

“We are passing the expense of this ordinance on to a number of businesses,” Calogera said, noting that it affects not only 24-hour convenience stores like 7-Eleven, but gas stations and potentially banks with ATMs in the lobby as well.

And with improved security technology, Calogera said, the Township Council must take a new look at the ordinance to balance safety with business.

“We have to balance out the concerns ofMrs. Pannetta [Totten] and other people, versus the realities of technology today, which is different than technology was back then, and see what the necessities are,” Calogera said.

Repealing the ordinance, though, would be unimaginable to Pannetta Totten, who struggles daily to deal with her brother’s death.

“It’s kind of like a slap in the face,” she said .

While security cameras help, she said they are simply not enough to deter crime or save a life in an emergency situation.

She said she doesn’t want what happened to her brother to happen to anyone else, and will fight to keep the ordinance on the books.

“There has to be two workers,” Pannetta Totten said. “Does the council want to be the ones with the blood on their hands, saying, ‘Oh by the way, we had this, but we took it away because we thought cameras would work’?”