DUI Lawyers in Plumsted, NJ

These are not the images that come to mind with mentions of Plumsted, a typically quiet town of about 8,000 residents, bucolic farms and conservative-leaning town leaders.

Plumsted recently gained attention when members of The Satanic Temple's New Jersey chapter, a non-theistic religious organization, and a group of Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, silently squared off in the town hall during an "unbaptism" ceremony. The incident was first reported by Jersey Shore Online.

The event was out of place for a town where prayers typically opened municipal meetings and church groups routinely met in municipal spaces. That's part of the reason The Satanic Temple members took an interest in the community. Michael Silvestro Jr., or "Reverend Leviathan" as he is known among Satanic Temple members, said he was motivated by a desire to see more religious pluralism and equality.

"We were founded as a pluralistic country," Silvestro said. "As a country, we can't have a go-to religion, because it ends up leading to extremism."

Silvestro said the group was also attracted to Plumsted's centralized location in the state, which makes it convenient to members from both northern and southern New Jersey. He said the group has about 600 Facebook followers and about 20 regular attendees to its various functions, such as its "Sippin' with Satan" coffee meetups. A few members are even Plumsted residents, he said.

When not holding ceremonies, the Satanic Temple members have worked on a local community garden, donated to another faith-based group's food pantry, and operate a peer-to-peer parent support group, Silvestro said.

"We try to find like support groups to help each other, be a better person and be better to society," he said.

Despite its name, members of the temple do not worship Satan; rather, they view Satan as a literary character with admirable qualities, Silvestro said. Satan rebelled against authority and stood for his beliefs despite the odds against him, he said.

"It's that ultimate rebel, the ultimate opposite of the tyrannical authority," Silvestro said. "We look at that and we try to embody those characteristics."

The community garden and food pantry donations did not draw attention from the Proud Boys and law enforcement to its meeting; rather, the group's unbaptism ceremony did. As part of the ritual, temple members used burned Bible pages.

"It's important to clarify that our use of burnt Bible pages is not an act of hate or disrespect towards Christianity," Silvestro said. "Rather, it symbolizes personal liberation and the release from dogmatic beliefs that some of our members have experienced as oppressive or harmful.

"We recognize and respect the sacredness of the Bible in Christianity," he continued. "Our intention is not to denigrate what is holy to others, but to use symbolism that is meaningful in the personal journeys of our members. This ritual is about individual empowerment and the affirmation of our core principles, including empathy, personal autonomy, and the pursuit of knowledge."

It was unclear if the Proud Boys, who watched from the back of town hall, were convinced.

For The Satanic Temple, Plumsted was a nearly perfect location for an act of religious rebellion.

Baptist Pastor Dominick Cuozzo of the Bible Baptist Church is the township's newly appointed mayor.

Cuozzo, in a phone interview, said he wanted the township to be known for its long standing amenities – wineries, U-pick farms, a quaint downtown and rural lifestyle – rather than as a setting for religious or social friction.

"Our town gives opportunity to all local not-for-profit community groups… We want them to use our municipal facilities," the mayor said. "I have no intention of ever treating anybody with discrimination, and I know that they (the Satanic Temple) are trying to get us to do that, but we won't. We believe everyone has an equal footing and we are very committed to everyone's First Amendment rights. We're going to be fair."

Township attorney Jean Cipriani echoed the mayor.

"The town has actually been very conscious to be sure that all groups, including the Satanic Temple, have equal opportunity to use municipal facilities on an equal footing," she said.

Temple members are seeking to hold regular meetings in town hall going forward. In addition, Silvestro said he and another member of the Satanic Temple applied to perform invocations at the start of Plumsted Township Committee meetings, but the committee awarded the invocation job to another minister.

He has not been deterred.

"We're gonna try again next year," Silvestro said.

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers education and the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than a decade. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.

PLUMSTED - Discounter chain Dollar General has opened its new store on East Mill Stream Road.

The store, at 308 E. Mill Stream Road in the township’s Cream Ridge section, features household essentials, including food, cleaning supplies, paper products, over-the-counter medicines and baby items, among other categories.

It also has an assortment of fresh fruit and produce, items such as lettuce, tomatoes, apples and salad mixes, that cover about 80% of produce sold in a traditional grocery store. The new store also has Dollar General’s new home decor and expanded party preparation selecions.

”At Dollar General, we believe the addition of each new store provides positive economic growth for the communities we proudly serve, and the addition of our new Cream Ridge store highlights our commitment to deliver a pleasant shopping experience that includes great prices on quality products in a convenient location, ” said Matthew Simonsen, Dollar General’s senior vice president of real estate and store development, in a statement.

“We look forward to welcoming customers to our new store and hope they will enjoy shopping at our new location.”

David P. Willis, an award-winning business writer, has covered business and consumer news at the Asbury Park Press for more than 20 years. He writes APP.com's What's Going There and Press on Your Side columns and can be reached at dwillis@gannettnj.com. Join his What's Going There page on Facebook for updates.

PLUMSTED - DeWolf's U-Pick Farm, which has sold produce to markets, locals and students on field trips during the past 55 years, has closed, and its property is for sale.

Kim DeWolf, the farm's second-generation owner, said the work became too strenuous, and younger family members aren't interested in taking over. The 220-acre farm, along with the four-bedroom house on the property, has been listed for $3.4 million.

"Really, I'm getting older. It's time to retire. My bones ache. My body hurts. It's a lot of hours," DeWolf, 66, said. "I really enjoyed doing it and being with my customers and selling vegetables and stuff, but it's just getting too hard."

DeWolf's is a massive property that is part of Ocean County's farm preservation program. And it has made its name over the decades selling strawberries, peppers, tomatoes — and other produce to an increasingly diverse customer base.

The sale comes as DeWolf said people flocked to the farm during the pandemic, finding a safe, outdoor escape and helping the farm contribute to the state's $1.1 billion agriculture industry.

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DeWolf's closing was met with sadness from its patrons.

Visitors were routinely handed a basket and a map to help them find the location of the crop they were searching for. They picked the produce themselves and headed to check out, where they were charged by the pound.

Donna Deluzio, 72, of Manchester, was a frequent customer. Sometimes, she brought her family and spent the day picking strawberries. Other times she would stop by on her own and buy as much as 60 pounds of tomatoes that she would use to make salsa, or preserve.

The prices were reasonable, giving people a chance to buy healthy food at wholesale prices, she said.

DeWolf's closing, "doesn't make me happy because I have to find someplace else to go to pick all my stuff," Deluzio said. "It wasn't a small amount of people who used to go there to pick. I mean, weekends it was just packed. There are going to be a lot of disappointed people."

DeWolf's started in 1967 when Kim's parents, John and Elaine DeWolf, sold their property in Old Tappan and moved to Plumsted. They grew the produce and trucked it to sell at markets in the Bronx and Philadelphia. They added a pick-your-own operation in the 1970s.

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As a child, Kim DeWolf said she would go to school, come home, have a snack and then help with the family business by packaging produce.

She said she enjoyed the work and stayed on with the farm after high school — a decision made easier after they gave up the long truck rides to New York and focused on the pick-your-own part of the business.

Kim and her younger brother, Peter, eventually took the reins.

The job didn't sound easy. In addition to the muscle aches, they had to battle the weather, closing for the day when it was too rainy or writing off crops that wilted under extreme heat.

But they found new ways to attract visitors. They hosted school trips in the spring for students to pick strawberries, and they offered hay rides and pumpkin picking in the fall.

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DeWolf's took its place in Ocean County's agritourism industry, alongside Laurita Winery and Hallock's U-Pick Farm and Greenhouse. And they attracted visitors from far and wide.

"People want food," said Charlie Hallock, whose family has operated a pick-your-own business since 1970 "I have people who come from as far away as Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Islands, Massachusetts, North Carolina."

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Kim DeWolf, however, said the job began to take a toll. She had both her knees replaced. She needs shoulder surgery. And her arthritis is painful.

Meanwhile, her daughter, Jessie Shaw, has her hands full raising three children. So the family began talking a couple of years ago about winding down.

"It's a hard thing to think about having to do," Kim DeWolf said. "It wasn't something we took lightly."

The property has been protected from development since 1997, when Ocean County paid John and Elaine DeWolf $2,300 an acre and added it to its farmland preservation program.

Still, the land could be valuable if the DeWolfs can find a buyer. New Jersey farmland was valued at $14,400 an acre in 2021, up 5.9% from 2020, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture.

Only Rhode Island has more expensive farmland, the agency said.

Kim DeWolf said she loved working in the greenhouses this time of year as the weather got warmer and the sun was bright. She would blast the radio and sing as loud as she wanted, knowing no one could hear her.

She'll miss hearing her customers rave about her tomatoes that they used to make their salsa or the corn that they took on their picnics.

When COVID-19 hit, the crowds came in mass — so many that at times, DeWolf said, she had to close the gates. It made her wonder if she should have kept it going another season or two.

Ultimately, she decided against it.

"I don't know how much more my body can take," she said.

Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter who has been writing about the New Jersey economy and health care industry for more than 20 years. He can be reached at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.