SPARE CHANGE: Forcing out Bishop's diner for a bigger gas station is no reason for cheer

Oddznendz gathered while wondering why people constantly complaining about gas prices have hundreds of dollars to buy an arsenal of fireworks:

• Bishop’s Fourth Street Diner will be 86’d in a month or so. It will be replaced with a Shell gas station and eventually a Seasons Market.

Wow.

Believe it or not, this is cause for giddiness among some at City Hall. The message? Why do we want to keep a long-term local business when we can grab more in taxes with a chain outfit?

'There is nostalgia to it': Bishop's 4th Street Diner regulars don't want to see it go

Owners Steve Bishop and wife Vicki Garcia Bishop grew up here and have known their business has been in the crosshairs for awhile.

They’ve had a couple of stays of execution the past two years. But the time has come.

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The Zoning Board of Review green-lighted this move two weeks ago. Colbea Enterprises owns the land and has been trying to chase away the Bishops for a while.

If the Bishops were hoping for help from local officials, they were dreaming.

Here’s old friend and Zoning Board member Sue Perkins, cheerleading for Colbea: “They say change is good. I think it will be a very great addition to the area and to Newport.”

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This will mark the end of the last O’Mahoney diner in the state and yet another diner leaving the island. Meanwhile, there are two Shell station mini-marts in Newport, two in Middletown.

Newport … the land of historic preservation.

• Famed journalist Bob Woodward was terrific before a sellout crowd at the Redwood Library on Wednesday.

Woodward, who with Carl Bernstein, broke scoop after scoop on Watergate in the early 1970s, has turned his attention to former President Donald J. Trump, having written three books about him.

Woodward said Trump has the biggest political machine of anyone not in elected office. In a 90-minute session of lecture and Q&A, Woodward praised the efficiency of the Jan. 6 panel.

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So far, he said Republicans are split on Trump running in 2024. A GOP poll, he said, revealed, “Fifty percent would walk off a cliff for him. Twenty percent would throw him off the cliff. And 30 percent just want to win.”

• Reviews have been mixed, but I fully enjoyed “Elvis.”

Like most biopics, it plays with some facts, but its essence is real. Young Austin Butler is excellent in the title role, especially the concert scenes.

And an almost unrecognizable Tom Hanks is convincing as 300-pound Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’ sleazy manager.

• “The Dark Hours” by Michael Connelly is good, but not great Connelly. Entertaining but don’t make this your first Connelly novel.

• Better is “The Plague Year” by Lawrence Wright, which scrutinizes the pandemic in 2020-21. Wright lets no one off the hook. That includes Trump, who fumbled early on, the clueless CDC and even Dr. Anthony Fauci.

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This is the definitive look at the virus … until the next definitive look.

• “Stranger Things” had some terrifying moments. But not as many as the Jan. 6 hearings.

Jim Gillis is a Daily News columnist. Send him email at jimgillis13@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Spare Change: Bishop's 4th Street Diner forced out for gas station