Pizza controversy needs a pizza party — Bring angry cops, biz owner together

Remember the good old days when the only thing on the pizza box was the guy with the slogan "You've tried the rest, now try the best?" Now it's all changed.

Apparently a police officer goes into Mancini's pizza in East Brunswick to order lunch and sees what she thinks is the word "pig" written on a box. When she inquired about it, she was told it was not the word pig, but a P and squiggly lines which is a symbol for garlic knots, according to owner Frank Mancini on Bill Spadea's show. It was also pointed out by the owner's brother that it wasn't even her box.

The officer, according to Mancini, then says "I'm having a bad day, just give me my food." The brother then presses the officer to make sure she believes that they would never do anything like that. She then leaves without the food. The pizzeria keeps the box, a picture of which they released to the public just in case.

A misunderstanding easily corrected right? Not so fast. The East Brunswick PBA posted on facebook on Saturday:

It has come to our attention that Mancini Pizza has released a photograph of the alleged pizza box. The photograph conjured up by Mancini Pizza, 11 days after the incident, is not an actual depiction of the original pizza box. It is unfortunate, but not surprising that Mancini Pizza would attempt to cover up the truth and continue to avoid taking responsibility for the behavior of their employees. As mentioned in our previous statement, the officer refutes the claims made by Mancini Pizza regarding the matter. We will continue to stand by the officer's account of the event. The East Brunswick PBA would like express our gratitude to the public and the law enforcement community who have been supportive.

If you know me or listen to my show, you know that I am fully supportive and appreciative of the police. I'm thankful for the job they do protecting us. However, it just doesn't make sense to me that a business operating in East Brunswick would diss an officer, especially since it's the owner's brother who served her and not some employee who went rogue. If, in fact, the PBA produces some evidence backing their side of the story I could be swayed but right now, this is all we have.

Mancini feels that "maybe if the PBA had just contacted me, that we could have resolved this problem." I think the problem can still be resolved for the good of all involved.

I think this whole thing is a big misunderstanding. If I were Mancini's I would reach out to the police with apologies for any misunderstanding while enforcing my support of the police and the job that they do. I would then offer to throw them a pizza party. I would have the officer come in with her rep and talk it out. A peaceful resolution is in everyone's best interest. Last but not least, I would change my box coding.

Frank Mancini tells Spadea that he totally supports the police, "I just feel that these allegations are not true" he goes on to say that the support he's gotten "has been incredible." I can say that Mancini's got plenty of supportive calls while I did the topic on air including two people who stopped in while listening to me. Maybe what they say is right: "Any publicity is good publicity!"

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