Troublesome Swedesboro shop owner will sell out

For months, the peculiar saga of a downtown Swedesboro liquor shop owner scaring away customers - many of them shouted down with racial epithets in a manner reminiscent of a bygone era - has been the talk of the borough.

Some were shooed from the store without the booze (or, in one case, the Coke) they had come to buy. Others were locked out. A handwritten note on the door warned patrons: "The clerk does not want to talk."

Complaints about store owner Mario "Mike" Falciani's outbursts led the mayor to call him a "known racist."

Residents and officials were also dismayed as the store's notoriety spread beyond their quiet borough's boundaries.

So there was relief along Kings Highway, a main drag lined with Victorians and trees, when people heard that the sour chapter in their town's history is to end this week. Kings Liquor Store is to be sold on Wednesday.

Falciani, 54, was facing another suspension of his liquor license as complaints against him accumulated.

But what was behind Falciani's erratic behavior, which seemed to intensify the last two years, and whether he was racially motivated or just indiscriminately rude, are questions still puzzling people.

Almost everyone on Kings Highway - in the auto shop, the hair salon, the bakery - has a story:

The pastry shop workers who served Falciani coffee daily, but knew better than to engage him in conversation; the hairstylists whose clients complained about him; the mechanic who was kicked out of the store for noting a shattered light in a display case.

"I thought he was racist, too, but then it just seemed he was rude to everybody," said Ryan Minter, 35, an African American who is a lifelong Swedesboro resident.

Falciani's brother, a Woodbury lawyer who represents him, agreed.

"He's been more offensive to some white folks in town," A. John Falciani said.

"He's been provoked and threatened on a repeated basis, by persons of all colors," he said of his brother, who has owned the store for 30 years. "When he feels threatened and provoked, he generally, in a less than perfect manner, throws people out of the store."

Yet for people who said their skin color had been singled out, the callous remarks were all about race.

Tyra Causey, a retired Air Force training manager, said she visited the store with Gloucester County NAACP president Loretta Winters in April 2013 after a complaint was made to the association.

It was Causey's anniversary, she said, so she also planned to buy wine. Her husband had shopped there before, so she did not expect the scenario that unfolded.

As the two women approached the door, Falciani locked it. Even as they waited outside, Causey said, several white customers were allowed in. The women called police. When officers arrived, they told the two that another caller had reported them for "soliciting."

"I never had that happen to me anywhere in this country, ever," said Causey, 38, of Mickleton, a vice president with the county NAACP who said she was not speaking on its behalf.

Months later, at a town meeting, Falciani apologized. The store's license was suspended for one month, Falciani was made to install video and audio surveillance, and employees were required to undergo diversity training.

The problems continued.

Since early 2013, Woolwich Township police, who patrol Swedesboro, have recorded a dozen allegations of racial discrimination at the store. In short, Police Chief Russell Marino said, the store "was a nuisance."

In one case, a customer who was told to leave - and never to return - for being on his cellphone threw two liquor bottles from the counter, breaking a window. Falciani did not press charges, but months later tried to force a $650 bill upon the customer on the street, prompting another police report.

Early last month, Romeo Dixon received a frantic call from his wife, Emily, after Falciani accosted her as she walked near the store, blocks from their home.

"Get off my sidewalk," Falciani told the woman, using the N word, Dixon, 73, said. After Dixon visited the store for an explanation, Falciani called police. A police report of the incident noted that he told officers "he did not want African Americans, Hispanics, and 'trashy' Caucasians in his store."

Dixon, who traveled to the South for sit-ins and demonstrations as a Rutgers University student in the early 1960s, said he had never experienced such an episode since moving to the borough at age 10.

"It's 2014," Dixon, a Paulsboro record shop owner, said. "You don't need that today."

Joe Costanzo, 29, a mechanic at Schoener's Service Station across from Kings Liquor, said Falciani's behavior had become familiar. "Everyone just knows how Mike is," he said.

John Falciani alluded to medical issues and also said his brother had suffered a brain injury in a car accident about a decade ago. He would not elaborate. He said his brother would not agree to an interview.

Mayor Thomas Fromm told the South Jersey Times that the situation had "embarrassed" the town.

In e-mails to The Inquirer last week, Fromm wrote that "this situation was very time-consuming and costly." He said the borough had incurred about $20,000 in legal costs.

"We wish the new owner great success in Swedesboro," he said.

The neon glow of beer signs in the liquor store's window was absent last week, signaling an end to the tumult. JB's Liquor, in Woolwich, is expected to buy the store. A staffer at the business declined to comment.

To a community proud of its historic charm - it has one of the oldest log cabins in the country and the oldest church in Gloucester County, and claims links to a signer of the Declaration of Independence - it will be a welcome change.

"You have to be pleasant to the public," Andrea Smith, 55, said as she applied highlights to a client's hair in her Headlines Hair Salon. "He really doesn't want to be bothered."

Hairstylist Pat Eckenroad, 56, said, simply, "It's bad for the town."