Jersey Mayhem: Shady Bowling Alley Owner Accused Of Torching Rival Lanes

If you were writing a script for a movie, or perhaps an episode of “The Sopranos,” and you needed a name for a retired warrant officer who bought a South Jersey bowling alley called Pike Lanes Family Fun Center, talked big about putting the competition out of business, and then burned down a beloved local landmark in order to do so, what’s the best you could come up with? How about Steven Henry Smink? Yes, Smink. That’s the name of the 47-year-old man accused of arson in the fire that gutted the 50-year-old Loyle Lanes bowling alley in Vineland in the early morning hours of January 11th.

Apparently, the 45-year-old Family Fun Center, in Deerfield, which Smink bought in 2007, had fallen upon hard times. It lost its liquor license in July. Lanes had been closed in need of repair, leagues-regular customers-were finding other venues. Like the well-established Loyle Lanes-a four million dollar business that had just received $400,000 worth of renovation, including ten-foot video screens and new computerized scoring system. Smink, who has a prior conviction on a federal weapons charge and would no doubt be played by Steve Buscemi in your movie, owed $28,000 in back taxes. So, police say, he hired as accomplices 21-year-old electrician Felix Manzano and an unnamed 17-year-old-both of whom live near Smink in Northeast Philadelphia-and bought a can of gasoline, which was found in the woods behind the shell of Loyle Lanes after the fire.

The three were arrested on Tuesday after a surveillance operation outside their homes. Pike Lanes closed for business later that day. When a Gannet News reporter contacted Manzano’s father, the man said he didn’t believe his son was guilty. “He’s stupid,” the elder Manzano said. “But he’s not that stupid.”

Proving that, for crime reporters, at least, it really is always sunny in Philadelphia.