TO ALL the obnoxious, yakking, shoving, foul-breathed Central Park pigeon-feeders of New York City who were displaced by Sandy, the gentlefolk of Margate, Ventnor and Longport would like you to know you’re welcome to stay this summer.

Just don’t wear your damn N.Y. Rangers jersey into Maynard’s Café, said Ed Berger, president of the Margate Business Association.

To which this longtime Longporter visitor might add:

• Do not park on the beach blocks. And no, it doesn’t matter that you drive a Bentley.
• Do not order a “hero” at Sack O’Subs at 5217 Ventnor Ave., Ventnor. It is OK to call it a “hoagie,” however.
• Do not lay out your beach towel next to mine. Gimme some space, for cryin’ out loud. Also, use your inside voice.
• Do not whine that the bagels at Downbeach Deli, 8 S. Essex Ave., Margate, aren’t as good as back home. They’re freaking great, and so is their brisket.
• Do not go all Manhattan Taxi Driver on us and run over beachgoers crossing Atlantic Avenue. Pedestrians have the right of way.

More could be said, but that shouldn’t be necessary, for, as Berger noted, “There’s always been a lot of New Yorkers down here. “

Even with hordes of Hudson River hobos migrating down the Atlantic City Expressway, Berger predicted that a Big Apple influx post-Superstorm Sandy would have little “impact on the fabric or composition” of Philly’s Jersey Shore.

That’s good, because much of what Philadelphia loves about the Shore is its familiarity. The same salt air, the same sassy waitresses, the same handsome lifeguards on the stands.

• In Ventnor, familiarity is an early-morning bike ride along the stretch of Boardwalk that runs from Atlantic City, past quirky beach houses and old-timers on park benches.
• In Margate, it’s grabbing a treat at Junior’s Donuts & Dogs, on Amherst Avenue, before an afternoon fishing trip from the marina.
• In Longport, it’s a stroll past Victorian-style mansions toward the rocks at the point, for a beautifully serene sunset.

Still, even Fishtowners who’ve made the trek every summer for generations may not recognize the place this summer. Although Sandy didn’t do as much damage as it did up the coast, the flooding was enough to prompt many businesses and homeowners to do extensive face-lifting.

• Jerry Blavat’s Memories, on Amherst Avenue in Margate, has a new look inside. The popular Margate Dairy Bar, on Ventnor Avenue, was gutted, so its owner has set up a temporary pink-and-blue curbside trailer to continue scooping up ice cream. The Monaco hotel, long an eyesore along the Ventnor Boardwalk, is slated to make way for million-dollar townhouses. Word is demolition will get underway as early as June.
• And there are at least a half-dozen new businesses in Ventnor and Margate, including a “blowout” salon for post-beach spruce-ups, a couple of new boutiques, a sushi shop and an authentic South Philly-style sidewalk cheesesteak shop. All the repairs, teardowns and construction means you can expect to hear the constant bang of hammers on most days.

So, what else is new?

• It won’t get any louder than at the Ventnor Fishing Pier on June 26, when they’ll be “Rockin’ the Thunder” with a tremendously noisy air show.
• A few days later, on June 29, it’s Beachstock: The Planet’s Biggest Beach Party, on the Margate beach between Granville and Huntington avenues. More than 15,000 are expected to attend for a day of live music, food, contests, a beer garden and a bonfire.
• In Longport, look for the U.S. Navy SEAL challenge on Aug. 31. It’s like an Ironman competition on steroids, with contestants swimming before somehow hoisting a huge pipe on their shoulders for a three-mile run.

For many visitors, the biggest change may be to the beaches themselves.

Although the Shore’s greatest treasure largely survived, the sea stole a lot of sand, and now high tide is really high tide. Expect to see ugly pipes running from the ocean onto Ventnor’s beach for replenishment.

In Longport, meanwhile, the most lasting post-Sandy change will come after the summer. That’s when the borough is expected to begin construction of new sand dunes to help protect homes.

So, a final warning to New Yorkers: Do not complain about being forced to traipse over mounds of sand. At least you’ve got a beach to enjoy.

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This column appeared on the Inquirer Op-Ed.

They were laughing at us in Minneapolis this week when the NFL canceled the Vikings-Eagles game because of snow.

One Twin Cities columnist mocked, “Oooooo, six inches of snow. Oooooo, I’m scared. Better call off the game and call in the National Guard. Heck, in Minnesota we dump six inches of snow out of our socks at the end of the day. ”

Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe declared, “. . . If this was in the Midwest, there would be no way that this would be delayed. ”

“You ever hear of snow plows?” more than one Vikings fan blogged.

Yo, I’m as much of a believer in Bednarikian fortitude as the next Eagles fan. I still proudly show strangers the scars where my keister froze to a metal bench on the top row of the Vet’s 700 Level on a 17-degree January afternoon during the 1981 Eagles-Vikings playoff game. I eat raw meat before games. I don’t wear a helmet. And I regularly pray to Bucko Kilroy, the former Eagle who – accused of biting an opponent’s nose back in the ’50s – replied, “I didn’t bite his nose. I bit his ear. ”

So I won’t have a bunch of Minnesotoids questioning Philly’s ability to withstand Mother Nature.

We should be used to their slander by now, I suppose. Every time a snowstorm hits an urban area, you hear the same drawl from grizzled hayseeds from out in West Bumpus. Eh-yup, you city slickers just don’t know how to handle a snowstorm. Why, up here we don’t let a little snow keep us from our daily chores. Back in ’63, we had 12 feet of snow in July, and we still held our county fair!

Right.

In fact, when snow hits a major city, it is always worse than when it hits a smaller town, for the simple reason that cities have more people who have to contend with the foul weather.

Pile two feet of snow on some country lane, and who cares? There are eight people in the zip code, and they’ll just hunker down till spring.

Drop six inches on I-95, and the number of people trapped in cars could constitute an entire congressional district. They’re headed for jobs that are the engine for an economy that sustains millions.

Minneapolis isn’t exactly Podunk, but the same math applies.

Philadelphia has four times the population of Minneapolis – about 1.5 million people compared to 375,000. That’s four times the number of people moving from one place to another, four times the number of cars stuck in snowdrifts, four times the number of vehicles trying to find a parking space.

And Philadelphia does it on only twice the amount of road miles, based on streets department stats from both municipalities. That means our city streets are twice as congested as Minneapolis’s.

When you visit the Midwest, you marvel at the miles of open highway. Cars cruise freely. Drivers grin. According to the U.S. Census, the average daily commute in the Twin Cities is under 20 minutes. In the Delaware Valley, it’s nearly a half-hour. The daily backup on the Schuylkill Expressway is as foreign to Twin City dwellers as a good cheesesteak.

One other thing: In this age of climate change, Philadelphia actually gets more snow than Minneapolis.

Last year, we were buried by nearly 80 inches. Minneapolis had under 40. Remember that 17-inch storm that collapsed the Minnesota Metrodome earlier this month? That was the city’s largest snowstorm in 20 years. Philly has had four 20-inchers in that span.

And, yes, we do plow the damn stuff. Last year, Philadelphia taxpayers spent about $11 million on snow removal. Minneapolis spent about $7 million.

Does all of this mean the NFL was right to cancel Sunday’s game?

Yo, I like watching football in the snow as much as Bill Bergey enjoyed sacking Fran Tarkenton. But I was steaming when I heard our governor pander to Eagles fans by claiming the cancellation was “part of the wussification of America. ”

“We’ve lost a lot of our pioneer spirit,” Gov. Rendell said in one TV appearance. “We used to be a hearty, strong frontier people, and we had that spirit that we could do anything that we set our minds to. ”

This from a guy who attended prep school in New York City.

Perhaps the governor was referring to the spirit of those hearty Midwesterners who headed for California in the winter of 1846-47 only to find themselves trapped in a blizzard. They were strong frontier people, too, with a fine pioneer spirit (but apparently no snow plows).

They went by the name of Donner.

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By Bob Warner and Don Russell

Faced with anger, confusion and disbelief from beer-drinkers and the beer industry, Pennsylvania lawmakers are pressing for an explanation of recent State Police raids on bars and distributors, over allegedly unregistered brands.

The state Liquor Control Board posted a new list of legally registered brands yesterday, including several of the popular beers that were seized last week from three high-end city taprooms.

The liquor-enforcement arm of the State Police has quietly returned some of the confiscated brew to bar owners.

But both agencies continued to dodge questions on the armed raids against the three bars, and the chairman of the House Liquor Control Committee scheduled a hearing in Harrisburg next month to get answers.

“The way things were done, I wasn’t happy with,” said state Rep. Bob Donatucci, a South Philadelphia Democrat. “We’ve heard what everybody else has heard, one agency blaming the other, typical BS. . . . I can guarantee you, we’re gonna straighten out the problem, one way or the other. “

He said his committee and its Senate counterpart, the Senate Judiciary Committee, would hold a joint hearing on the raids April 13.

Donatucci said he thought the state had been making progress with its liquor system the past 10 years, “making Pennsylvania more consumer-friendly, more business-friendly. Then something like this happens and throws a monkey-wrench into the works. If I was a licensee, I’d be very upset. “

“These raids are already having major implications on the way we’re doing business,” said a beer wholesaler who asked not to be identified. “You can say goodbye to one-offs [one-time-only brews manufactured in small quantities by some beer-makers] unless the breweries pay 75 bucks to register the brand. “

He said the city of Philadelphia, which collects 10 percent on liquor sales, stood to lose tax revenues from the banned beers. “That’s the last thing this city needs right now,” the distributor said. “The state is coming down on small businesses at the worst time possible. “

After the raids, bar owners throughout the city had quickly pulled bottles of some of the blacklisted brands. Earlier in the week, it was nearly impossible to find a bottle of Duvel, the popular Belgian ale.

In the last two days, however, beer importers and brewers re-registered about 75 brands, including Duvel.

With the red tape cleared, bars began pulling secreted sixpacks from their basements and returned them to their menus.

“We’re scared,” one bar owner told the Daily News. “I’ve instructed my staff to match every beer we get delivered with the PLCB’s list of registered brands. If it’s not on the list, we’re not going to take delivery. “

Sources told the Daily News that several beer distributors in other parts of the state had been visited by State Police in search of unregistered beer.

Meanwhile, area food and beverage blogs called for protests against the LCB and the State Police. One local beer blogger, Lew Bryson of Bucks County, launched a Facebook page on Tuesday called “Abolish the PLCB-Rewrite the Code. ” Within 48 hours, it had attracted more than 2,500 followers.

A local group known as the Fishtown Beer Runners scheduled a 6.5-mile run March 25 to one of the raided bars, Local 44 in West Philadelphia, “to highlight the need for the state Legislature to reform the antiquated PA liquor laws.”

By Bob Warner and Don Russell

Pennsylvania State Police have staged another beer raid, confiscating about a dozen cases from a leading distributor in Northeast Philadelphia and ordering it to stop selling several well-known imports, including Duvel, a popular Belgian beer sold throughout the Philadelphia region.

Agents from the State Police Department’s Bureau of Liquor Code Enforcement (BLCE) descended Monday night on Origlio’s Beverage, a wholesale distributor in the Far Northeast whose primary brands include Coors and Yuengling.

The police seized about a dozen cases from a small California beermaker, Russian River Brewing Co., and ordered Origlio’s to stop selling Duvel and other beers, including Hacker-Pschorr, Paulaner and Monk’s Cafe Ale, developed in Belgium for the Philadelphia bar at 16th and Spruce streets.

As in armed raids conducted last week against three Philadelphia taprooms, the State Police alleged that the targeted beers were not properly registered with the state Liquor Control Board for sale in Pennsylvania – a process involving limited paperwork and a $75 fee.

The sketchy evidence available suggests that several of the beers in fact had been properly registered, and related liquor taxes had been paid.

But apparent miscommunication between the Liquor Control Board and the State Police has left the state’s investigators with only a foggy notion of what’s registered and what isn’t. The State Police proceeded with the latest raid in spite of the confusion.

“This is really an outrage,” said a local bar owner who missed his Duvel delivery yesterday. “The state doesn’t understand that Duvel actually is registered and has been sold here for years and years. It’s almost unbelievable. “

The bar owner, who said he sells two cases of Duvel a week, asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the State Police BLCE. “It doesn’t answer to anybody,” he said. “They’re running amok. “

For the second day, State Police officials in Philadelphia and Harrisburg failed to return telephone calls or respond to written questions from the Daily News.

The Liquor Control Board also failed to respond to questions about its communications with the State Police and apparent problems with its list of more than 2,800 registered beers.

The State Police banned further sales of the Monk’s brew, for instance, in spite of “Monk’s Cafe Ale” being listed on the LCB’s Web site as a registered beer. And it told Origlio’s to stop selling Duvel in spite of the fact that “Duvel Beer” is listed by the LCB.

So far, it appears Origlio is the only distributor raided in the recent State Police crackdown.

But others are reviewing their inventories and consulting lawyers, just in case.

“It’s just a clerical problem, but they’re treating this stuff like contraband,” said one distributor who asked not to be identified.

The beer that the State Police removed from Origlio’s was Russian River Supplication, an expensive ale with limited production, rarely available outside California. Its brewer, Vinnie Cilurzo, told the Daily News that he simply forgot to register some of his brands with the LCB.

“We are a small mom-and-pop brewery and every once in a while something slips through the cracks,” Cilurzo said in an e-mail.

The State Police would have needed a tractor-trailer to haul away Origlio’s ample supplies of the other beers on their suspect list, including Duvel, Hacker-Pschorr, Paulaner and the Monk’s Cafe Ale. Instead, they just ordered Origlio’s to stop selling them.

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By Bob Warner and Don Russell

IT WAS ELIOT NESS and the Untouchables, as played by the Keystone Kops.

More than a dozen armed State Police officers conducted simultaneous raids last week on three popular Philadelphia bars known for their wide beer selections. The cops confiscated hundreds of bottles of expensive ales and lagers, now in State Police custody at an undisclosed location.

The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board – a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.

Based on a complaint from someone the State Police refuse to identify, three teams of officers converged last Thursday on the three bars, run by Leigh Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft. Checking their inventories against the state’s official list of more than 2,800 brands, the cops seized four kegs and 317 bottles, totaling 60.9 gallons of beer, according to police calculations.

In fact, according to Maida, more than half the beer removed by the State Police was properly registered – but the cops couldn’t find it on their lists because of “clerical errors” or “blatant ineptitude” between the police and the Liquor Control Board, with whom the officers were conferring by telephone.

She estimated the total value of the confiscated stock at $7,200, representing about 20 brands, some of which go by multiple names.

For instance, the cops grabbed Monk’s Cafe Sour Flemish Red Ale.

The beer has been sold throughout the state at dozens of restaurants and distributors for the last seven years. The brand appears on the state’s online list as “Monk’s Café Ale. ” It’s on tap seven days a week at the Center City bar after which it was named: Monk’s Cafe, at 16th and Spruce streets.

But that wasn’t enough to keep the State Police from confiscating 20 bottles and three kegs of the supposedly illegal ale at the three bars run by Maida and Hartranft – Resurrection Ale House, at 2425 Grays Ferry Ave.; Local 44, at 44th and Spruce streets, in West Philadelphia; and Memphis Taproom, 2331 E. Cumberland St., Port Richmond.

Maida said that the State Police also confiscated bottles of Duvel, a popular ale imported from Belgium that is widely advertised and available in at least 200 bars throughout the city and suburbs. The beer appears on the PLCB list as “Duvel Beer,” while its label reads “Duvel Belgian Golden Ale. “

“No actual investigating was done,” Maida said in an e-mail to the Daily News. “The police sent a shoddily typed list to the PLCB, some drone fed it into the machine verbatim and returned what came back, without . . . even trying to offer us the benefit of the doubt by double-checking on some of the so-called unregistered beers. “

While acknowledging that it appears that some of the confiscated brands had not been properly registered, Maida said that about half appeared on the state’s registration list in some form.

“My main beef with this whole convoluted situation is that the PLCB is the sole regulator of a set of products that they do not even know the names of,” she said.

State Police Sgt. William N. La Torre, commanding officer of the Philadelphia office of the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, said that he was not aware of any beers that had been mistakenly confiscated.

La Torre said that the beer would be kept in a secured location, as evidence, until the case is resolved, probably in six to eight months. If an administrative-law judge finds that the bars possessed unregistered brands, the State Police typically would seek a forfeiture order to destroy the beer, he said. Depending on the temperature of the storage location, some of the beer will likely turn sour in that period.

Maida said that the couple’s attorney had told them that they have until 6 p.m. tonight to compile evidence to prove that the confiscated beer is properly registered.

“The onus is on us to prove our innocence,” she said.

She added: “It’s McCarthy-like. They swarm in here and confiscate this product because they don’t know what the product is. “

La Torre noted that Resurrection had been warned last year when it served an unregistered beer from Maryland – Resurrection Ale, made by Brewer’s Art, in Baltimore. Maida acknowledged that violation – the beer had been a gift in honor of their new business, she said, but the resulting citation made the couple extra-careful about compliance with the Liquor Board’s rules, she said.

La Torre said that the investigation was sparked by “a citizen complaint. “

“It doesn’t matter where the complaint is coming from,” he said. “If there is merit to the complaint, we have to follow through with it. . . . We received a complaint regarding the licensee bringing in unregistered beers and we confirmed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board that certain brands were not registered. “

Francesca Chapman, a PLCB spokeswoman, said that the registration requirement helps the state assure payment of state beer taxes and helps prosecutors identify alcoholic beverages in drunk-driving cases or any other type of prosecution.

Industry sources complain that brand registration is typical of the onerous regulations that make selling beer in Pennsylvania difficult. For example, while it is the responsibility of the brewer or importer to submit the necessary paperwork and registration fee, it is the tavern or restaurant licensee who may be liable for selling unregistered brands, they said.

Registration is further complicated by the growth of under-the-radar one-offs: unique, limited-production, highly sought-after draft beers that appear briefly – perhaps as quickly as an hour – on tavern taps. While they pay the necessary state and federal taxes, breweries sometimes do not bother to register the brands because they are produced in extremely small amounts.

Among the brands that the State Police reportedly sought during its raid was Pliny the Younger, recently named the No. 1 beer in the world by Beer Advocate, a popular online beer-rating site. The ale is made once a year by Russian River Brewing, in California.

Last month, about a dozen small kegs of the beer arrived in Philadelphia amid much hoopla. Several taverns, including the three operated by Maida and Hartranft, advertised specials for as much as $25 a glass.

In most cases, the kegs kicked in less than an hour.

Although it had been registered for sale in the past, Pliny the Younger currently does not appear on the state’s list of registered brands.

In an e-mail to the Daily News, Russian River owner Vinnie Cilurzo wrote: “It was a simple mistake on our part that we forgot to register some brands with the state of PA. We are a small mom and pop brewery and every once in a while something slips through the cracks.”

But apparently not just small breweries have failed to register brands. Heineken-owned Hacker-Pschorr, one of the largest breweries in Munich, does not appear on Pennsylvania’s registration list, though it is widely sold throughout the state.

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This column originally appeared in the Inquirer op-ed.

The old saying is that rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for General Motors. But wait a second – these days, aren’t we all pulling for the bankrupt GM and its endangered autoworkers?

Make it Goldman Sachs: Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for corrupt millionaires.

Which is why this year’s World Series is not merely an opportunity for the Phillies to avenge their loss to the Yankees in the 1950 championship. Most of us don’t remember or care about that.

No, this is our chance to finally defeat the enemy of our democracy: greed.

Scan the $2,625-a-game premium seats at Yankee Stadium, and you’ll see Wall Street traders, fresh from looting the American financial system, smoking cigars wrapped in $100 bills while cheering performance-enhanced prima donnas in a billion-dollar stadium subsidized by taxpayers.

The Yankees have long corrupted the sanctity of America’s pastime with their lousy dollars. They bought their way to their first championship with Babe Ruth in 1921, and they’re trying to do it again in 2009. They spent more than $200 million this year on player contracts – nearly three times the major-league average. Their lineup boasts the highest-paid player at six different positions.

And they cheat. No team has had more players publicly linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs than the Yankees. Rodriguez, Clemens, Giambi, Sheffield, Knoblauch, Justice, Brown – the list just goes on.

In the past, Yankee apologists might have swayed the majority by arguing that that’s the American way, that success and wealth at any cost – not fair play and the common good – are what made this nation great. That was back when capitalism had a better reputation.

In those days, the Yankees ruled the world as if they were the Chosen Ones. Each game day, they’d walk to the dugout in the old Yankee Stadium beneath a sign reminding them of that famous line of Joe DiMaggio’s:

I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee.

Never mind that I’m fairly certain no one – not even Vince DiMaggio – ever said, “I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Phillie. ” The quote just stinks of shameless hubris, as if no less a being than God Almighty Himself penciled in the day’s lineup.

This sense of smug entitlement has only been abetted by a jock-sniffing news media. Grinning TV hacks wear NY hats on camera as if they were suiting up for the big game. ESPN tracks the various dalliances of A-Rod.

Over the years, the best we have been able to hope for has been to pick up the New York papers after one of the city’s teams got jobbed out of inevitable victory to read – and laugh at – the sob stories.

I know, good sportsmanship says you shouldn’t kick a guy when he’s down. But the exception is when he’s a New Yorker. Who among us, for example, wasn’t rooting for Pedro Martinez during the 2003 American League playoffs when he decked 73-year-old Yankee coach Don Zimmer?

America, despite its fixation with the holy dollar, has always recognized the Yankees for what they are. Chicago newspaperman Mike Royko wrote that “hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax. “

Though Philadelphia has only ever faced the Yankees once when it mattered, it has always held particular enmity for the team. We’ve spat at its success and booed its stars. Living in the shadow of the Big Apple will do that to you.

Down here in Philly, we know losing better than anyone else on planet Earth. Which means that, in a world where we’ve finally witnessed the comeuppance of greed, no team is better suited to vanquish the common enemy than the Phillies.

Look, I’m not saying money is the root of all evil. I’m saying the Yankees are.

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Beer drinkers around the world are mourning the man who filled their glasses with the finest ales and lagers.

Michael Jackson the Beer Hunter died yesterday morning at his home in London. The cause of death has not been determined. Jackson, 65, had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Though he was not a brewer, Jackson was responsible for more good beer than anyone. His tools were not the malt shovel and mash tun but a ballpoint pen and small notebook in which he scribbled tasting notes and interviews during four decades as a newspaperman.

Jackson’s books and countless newspaper and magazine articles explored the far-reaching world of beer, from classic styles to obscure recipes.

He is primarily credited with establishing the language and identification of beer styles. Before Jackson, all beer was essentially the same; today, beer authorities recognize more than 100 major styles, defined by their cultural and technical characteristics.

Many of those styles – especially obscure varieties from Belgium – would be extinct today if not for Jackson’s writing. In 1994, as thanks for almost single-handedly reviving that nation’s brewing tradition, Crown Prince Philippe of Belgium gave Jackson its Mercurius Award.

For thousands of self-professed beer geeks, Jackson was a cult figure who inspired the U.S. microbrewery renaissance. They packed his lectures and surrounded him for autographs. His annual tutored tasting at the University of Pennsylvania Museum drew standing-room-only crowds and was the single most popular event for 17 consecutive years in the city’s the Book and the Cook festival.

A self-educated writer from a poor family, Jackson began his career as a newspaperman in Yorkshire, then in London at the Independent and the Observer. He began writing on beer as a sideline, publishing his first beer book in 1976.

Since then, he had written a dozen books on beer and whiskey that have been translated into 20 languages, including The Pocket Guide to Beer, published in nine editions. In 2006, his book “Whisky” won a James Beard award for journalism. His Web site, www.beerhunter.com, has been a huge resource on beer, travel and breweries.

Jackson was unmarried.

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With all the finger-pointing over that 24-hour traffic debacle on I-78 last week, I wonder if anyone has bothered to look into the whereabouts of the infamous Reno., Nev., sheriff’s department. Abandoning children and diabetics to suffer through an icy night on the highway sure sounds like the work of the world’s most incompetent law enforcement agency.

Of course, Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon) and company usually leave their victims laughing, not shivering to death.

If you’ve already seen Dangle’s, um, dangle on Comedy Central’s hit pseudo-docu-cop series, “Reno 911!,” you already know pretty much what his crew is up to in their first feature-length film. You’ve got car crashes, kinky sex, public drunkenness and accidental gunplay – and that’s all the work of the cops. The preposterously titled “Reno 911!: Miami” plays like three back-to-back episodes of the TV show.

Which is not a bad thing. The TV show is a raucous bit of satire with sight gags that work even in reruns. Plus, this is not the kind of movie where you want to waste any time on character development; you only need to know that, for these guys, “serve and protect” has been replaced by “my bad. “

And you certainly don’t want to see them holding a loaded gun. When Deputy Trudy Weigel (Kerri Kenney-Silver) takes aim, you know the bullet will always hit the wrong person for the biggest laugh. It’s no wonder Deputy Travis Junior (Robert Ben Garant) never goes anywhere – including his own bed – without a bulletproof vest.

As in the TV show, “Cops,” a camera crew follows the Reno sheriff’s office on its daily patrols. Dangle, outfitted in his trademark tight shorts (to provide him with the dexterity of a “law enforcement cheetah”), takes them all to Miami for a police convention, where a terror plot leaves them as the only cops on duty.

The deputies leap into action, wreaking havoc on alligators, coke dealers, local citizens and their own patrol cars. You might say it gets ugly – but only if your idea of ugly is the ample Deputy Raineesha Williams (Niecy Nash) in an official police thong.

These guys couldn’t find South Beach with a GPS, much less crack a drug kingpin’s evil plans to take over the city. They are, as Dangle describes his deputies, “the dumbest group of people who aren’t legally retarded. “

You’d think the joke would wear thin after a while, especially in a post-9/11 world where you’re immediately suspect if you goof on law enforcement.

The truth is, though, cops are among the biggest fans of “Reno 911! ” When the cast visited the city last month to promote the movie, they were hosted by the local Fraternal Order of Police chapter. I’m guessing you need a pretty good sense of humor to be a cop these days.

Produced by Danny DeVito, Ben Garant, John Landgraf, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher, directed by Ben Garant, written by Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney-Silver, music by Craig Wedren, distributed by 20th Century-Fox.

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The following appeared in the Daily News Op-Ed.

OF ALL THE worrisome scenarios about the future of Philadelphia’s two daily newspapers, the one I’ve read the most is that no potential buyer will continue to operate both of them.

I don’t pretend to understand the numbers, but if some investor decides he can’t turn an adequate profit by operating both papers, then I’m sorry it has to be this way:

Farewell, Inquirer.

Yeah, I know, the conventional thinking is, if any paper folds, it would be the smaller Daily News. Compared to the weighty Inquirer, we seem so dispensable.

But before the new owner drops the ax, he should put all those market surveys and investor analyses aside and simply ask the readers which paper they’d rather see survive.

That might be a tough choice, but all you need to do is honestly answer this question:

What would you read instead if one of us closed?

Let’s say you want national and international news.

Unless it’s Paris Hilton, not Paris, France, you’re after, no big loss if the Daily News folds. But if the Inquirer closes, well, you’re just going to turn to the New York Times. In fact, you’re probably already subscribing to the Times, which does a much better job of covering the world than the Inquirer.

Suburban news?

Again, the Daily News doesn’t bother to cross City Avenue unless there’s spilled blood – the Inquirer beats us hands-down in the ‘burbs. Again, if you want that news, you’re already reading more in-depth coverage of your neighborhood in your local suburban paper.

So, let’s reassess: If the Inquirer closes, you can easily replace it with a paper you probably already read or is easily available.

The Daily News, on the other hand, kills the Inquirer on city news, sports and, incidentally, beer columnists. No one else has bylines from Bill Conlin or Dave Davies or Kitty Caparella. No one else writes headlines like the Daily News.

If the Daily News closed, what would you read?

Please, don’t tell me the Inquirer. It could no sooner replace a fun, in-your-face tabloid than the Daily News would publish a weeklong investigative report on the fate of African rhinos.

The problem here is one of misplaced priorities by the people who control the purse strings.

Ever since the two newspapers came under one owner, the Daily News has been the little sister, surviving on the scraps left over after the privileged broad-sheeters finished polishing their Pulitzer Prize entries. The owners never understood that, even during the Inquirer’s heyday, it was the brash little rag – “Rizzo Lied, Tests Show” – that Philadelphia cared and talked about.

Still clueless as recently as last week, the folks upstairs issued a glossy report belittling the Daily News as a scrappy underdog whose “character and spirit” should somehow be preserved when the ax falls. The unwritten suggestion is that the Inquirer might somehow find room in its pages to accommodate the journalism of the Daily News.

Spare me.

If the new owners have even an ounce of Philly smarts, they’ll quickly understand that it’s the Daily News that is irreplaceable.

And for those who doubt the People Paper could flourish as this city’s sole daily newspaper, I say give the Daily News the resources the Inquirer has always enjoyed – bigger staff, larger news hole, Sunday edition, earlier press time, foreign bureaus, decent comics and, not incidentally, a cheaper newsstand price – and see what would happen.

Bottom line: I don’t want to see any newspaper close. But if one of ’em has to go, better them than us.

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