Community Corner

Sand Bar Closed After Brielle Shooting, Point Boro Suspect in Custody

By Catherine Galioto and Denise Di Stephan

To visitors, 10 p.m. Monday at the Sand Bar looked like any other. Customers sauntered between outside benches, the indoor bar and outdoor seats overlooking the water.

Drinks and seafood were passed by servers in brightly colored shirts. The Stanley Cup Playoffs blared overhead on televisions and patrons laughed, gossiped and shared conversation.

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Only three hours later at closing time, the front parking lot of the Sand Bar on Ashley Avenue would be filled with police and emergency responders for a shooting. The female victim was taken to the hospital for injuries and was in critical but stable condition Tuesday afternoon.

Monmouth County Prosecutors have said Louis Cataldo, a 62-year-old Point Pleasant Borough man, is facing charges of attempted murder and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose after the shooting. Charles Webster of the Prosecutors Office said the woman was shot once and critically injured near the parking lot of the bar.

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Cataldo is the newest owner to the Sand Bar, purchasing the popular waterfront bar and restaurant before Hurricane Sandy, neighbors have said.

Police began swarming his Bay Point Harbour neighborhood home in Point Pleasant shortly after 4 a.m., when neighbors were awakened by police asking they vacate their homes. Barricaded for hours inside his home, Cataldo was arrested Tuesday afternoon. He is being held in the Monmouth County Correctional Facility on $1.5 million bail.

The incident occurred just as the Sand Bar was closing for the day at 1 a.m.

The bar never reopened Tuesday.

Two police cars sat nearby as a single line of police tape cordoned off the steps to one of the entrances to the Sand Bar. But hours later, the police tape was gone and the bar sat quietly, all its doors locked and last night’s specials still hanging in the front entrance.

The website for the Sand Bar remains down after high traffic exceeded the site’s bandwidth. No one picks up the phone as a previously taped message rattles off the bar’s features and encourages callers to hang up and call right back.

Open daily after 11 a.m., most nights the Sand Bar is a destination for boaters from the adjacent marina and water taxi or for others looking for a casual sports bar with a river view from inside seats and nearby deck seats.

But Tuesday night the bar remained shuttered. The police tape was gone and no signs explained the closure or if and when the Sand Bar planned to reopen.

Most of the day at neighboring Union Landing was quiet, with a handful of patrons. Mark, a customer who declined to give his last name, said the incident was shocking and that he didn’t go to the Sand Bar but had heard there was a new owner.

“I’m not surprised it’s closed today. The staff must all be shocked,” he said.




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