Although it perhaps violates the spirit of Lent, it does make for good press:

At Goodfella’s Brick Oven Pizza in Dongan Hills, there’s a tasty meal this Good Friday for Catholics abstaining from meat.

Their Lenten-specialty pizza features tender chunks of lobster, crabmeat and shrimp drizzled with a champagne and blackberry brandy cream sauce, tomatoes and scallions scattered above a layer of homemade fresh mozzarella cheese. Atop a cheese and coconut-infused 10-inch crust, it’s a veritable slice of heaven.

But some say the name the pie’s creators picked for the pizza, the “Passion of the Crust,” is as sinful as the cheesy seafood masterpiece is delicious.

The restaurant’s co-owner, Scot Cosentino, a Scientologist, and executive chef Sal Russo, a Catholic, insist they mean no disrespect.

“We wanted to give everybody a chance to have a special pizza,” Russo explained, adding that the pie has been popular since it was introduced at the start of Lent, and especially so on Fridays, when Catholics are enjoined to abstain from meat.

And the name, both said, derives from their passion for pizza, and the special coconut crust.

“We’re very passionate when we describe our pizza to our customers,” Russo said. “They start to drool.”

But though he said the pie “is nothing against the church,” he gestured to the old-fashioned brick oven where the Passion pizza was turning a gooey golden brown and joked that he sometimes sees a heavenly light shining from inside. “If you listen very closely, you can hear the voices of the archangels,” he said.

. . .

Russo said pizzeria staff called St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan to try to arrange for an official blessing of the pie, in preparation for his journey to Las Vegas on April 1 to enter it in the International Pizza Challenge. But an archdiocesan official called back and said the name of the pizza was too controversial, he said.

“I think the owners probably intended to do a very good thing in providing a seafood pizza,” said Sister Lois Darold of St. John Villa Academy. “I think perhaps they didn’t realize the title of this new pizza might be considered a little in poor taste.

“I don’t think there was any intent to make fun of the Catholic religion and the Christian experience. I’m not personally offended, except that I would have preferred a pizza that probably tastes very delicious would have a name that is a little more respectful.”

Now that the seven-figure NCAA pool at Jody’s is gone, another bar takes up the slack:

It will be at least another year — if ever — before Jody’s Club Forest reinstates its legendary March Madness pool, which reached a $1.5 million pot and had hordes of bettors lined up outside the tavern until it got benched last year.

But that hasn’t stopped plenty of people from calling the Forest Avenue bar in hopes the NCAA basketball pool had somehow been resumed — and at least one other bar is trying to fill the void.

“We still have people coming in looking for it,” Mary Haggerty, wife of Jody’s owner Jody Haggerty, said by telephone from her home yesterday. “I’m sure we would love to see it [come back]. People have been asking for it to come back and they’re hoping, but it’s not going to be this year.”

Meanwhile, most bettors interviewed by the Advance yesterday agreed that the place to bet on the games is Dannyboy’s Tavern, an establishment located about 2 1/2 miles from Jody’s, on Victory Boulevard in Castleton Corners.

“The problem with Jody’s is, no one was paying taxes on it except the last guy who won. It just got too big, and it was blatant that it was getting so huge,” said one patron, picking up a Dannyboy’s betting pool form at Jimmy Max in Westerleigh yesterday. “Let me put it this way: Danny’s is legit, and I haven’t heard of anywhere else.”

The first round of NCAA tournament games begins tomorrow, but most pools focus on naming the Final Four, the ultimate champ and — the tiebreaker — the final game point total.

Dannyboy’s was keeping unusually tight-lipped about what is a legitimate and perfectly legal enterprise, but some estimates put the size of last year’s pool at $200,000. By comparison, Jody’s topped out at a $1.5 million payout at the end of its 29-year-run and was featured in national publications and network news shows.

. . .

On the paperwork for Dannyboy’s pool, clearly marked is a pledge that all of the money bet will be handed over to the winner, and a warning that any patron lucky enough to win “will be provided with a form 1099 and is responsible for applicable taxes.”

How to change a lightbulb on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge:

. . . Two carry up a 50-pound red beacon light fixture, while the third distracts a peregrine falcon with a mean streak, lest it rip them all to pieces with its sharp talons.

By the way, all this requires sidestepping piles of pigeon heads, as the predatory falcons seem to have a habit of eating everything but.

. . .

The electricians usually make about 20 bulb-changing trips a year among the beacon lights, red “obstruction lights” on the cables and the bridge’s 340-plus decorative white “necklace lights.”

But burned-out bulbs have been a less-frequent occurrence these days, with the Verrazano the first MTA bridge to break in new ultra-efficient LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs.

With a life span of between five and 11 years, the new bulbs, which so far have replaced those in only the required red lights, already have decreased energy consumption by 90 percent, according to Maintenance Superintendent Charles Passarella.

With any luck, the new bulbs will mean fewer emergency trips to the top, and fewer dangerous run-ins with the falcon, which is particularly aggressive during mating season.

“Once they lay eggs around June, we can’t go up,” [MTA senior bridge and tunnel maintainer Kenny] Dybing said. “We don’t want to interfere with the process.”

Before the eggs hatch around early July, the male falcon is usually fairly well-mannered, but “the mother gets very protective,” Dybing said.

If a critical red light goes out during that window of time, the men go up with Chris Nadareski, a biologist and falcon expert from the city Department of Environmental Protection. Nadareski, who wears protective clothing, and is well-versed in falcon behavior, is able to distract the mother while the lights are changed, Dybing said.

“The same pair returns every year to breed,” Passarella said. The birds are banded so biologists can track their movements. Babies hatched on the Verrazano have been found far up the Hudson River.

Location Scout: Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Man sues City for lost manhood:

The builder who exactly three years ago spray-painted his Tottenville house in a fit of pique says in a federal lawsuit that the mayor and other city agencies forced him to spend several days in a hospital psychiatric ward, barred him from municipal buildings and even put him off sex with his wife after his house was designated a protected landmark.

John Grossi’s lawyers seek $10 million in damages for their client and charge, among other things, that the city violated the builder’s free speech and unlawfully detained him last spring, after he told police he would protest the landmarking by staging a mock crucifixion on his front lawn.

Grossi planned to hold a sign reading: “Mayor Bloomberg and the City of New York have Crucified me to this house,” according to the civil rights suit filed in Brooklyn federal court.

A short time later, the suit alleges, Grossi was arrested and taken to Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze. The lawsuit also alleges that the city’s “continuous and systematic harassment and depravation” of Grossi’s rights affected him so adversely that he couldn’t be intimate with his wife and prevented the couple from “procreating their first child through a natural means (sexual intercourse).”

Lori Grossi, John Grossi’s wife, seeks another $2 million in damages for loss of companionship in a suit that also names the Police and Fire departments and the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

. . .

Grossi told the Advance in 2005 that he planned to build four “upscale” townhouses at the site and five in place of another 19th-century Amboy Road home, which he did demolish.

When the mayor became aware of community concern about the other home and the spray-painting incident, he sided with the community and “publicly” vowed at a town hall meeting to landmark the house — ensuring its designation at the next meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, according to court papers.

Time was, you could rub hot peppers on your child’s genitals. That’s apparently not true anymore:

A 10-year-old boy from Charleston did not want to sit at his desk at a Staten Island elementary school last week, his teacher noticed.

She soon discovered why: His rear end was sore and bruised from a belt lashing he received from his stepfather the night before.

If this had happened 25 years ago, it may have been met with an ambivalent shrug.

But today, stricter reporting requirements, more aggressive prosecution and growing public awareness means “traditional” childhood discipline can lead to criminal charges much more frequently.

The man who allegedly doled out the corporal punishment, 30-year-old Ukraine native Alexandr Privler, was charged with a felony, assault with intent to cause physical injury with a weapon, and a misdemeanor, acting in a manner injurious to a child.

. . .

Over the past five years, arrests and convictions of cases in Staten Island in which endangering the welfare of a child — the most common charge in child-abuse cases — have gradually risen, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice statistics.

. . .

The unusual case of Clifton resident Ganganue Gonseh last April is a glaring example. A native of Liberia, Gonseh punished his then 8-year-old and 11-year-old boys by making them strip naked, then rubbing a hot yellow pepper on their faces — including their eyes — and on their genitals. The boys were brought home by police for skipping school and allegedly shoplifting video games at a Hylan Boulevard store earlier that day.

The two kids were treated at Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton for itching and skin irritation, and Gonseh was charged with third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of child.

The father argued that the disciplinary practice — called “Hot Peppering” –is common practice in many African countries and in parts of this country. He eventually pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and a disorderly conduct violation, with the provision that the endangering charges would be dropped once he completed a parenting course.

Brokers find Papal Mass to be a weak draw:

Tight security at Pope Benedict XVI’s April 20 mass at Yankee Stadium is keeping some Staten Islanders from seeking the limited number of tickets available, and providing another reminder of how life in New York City has changed since the terror attacks of 2001.

Those hoping to attend the 2:30 p.m. mass have to commit to at least a 10-hour day and arrive at their parishes before 8:30 a.m. to board buses. No private cars will be allowed into the Stadium parking lot. Even the priests who will celebrate mass with the pope and serve communion in the stands will travel by bus.

. . .

The lower-than-anticipated demand for tickets made it easier on pastors, who weren’t looking forward to disappointing their parishioners.

St. Adalbert’s Church in Elm Park planned to hold a lottery drawing last Wednesday night to distribute its 22 tickets. Each name pulled from the pot would receive two tickets. But with only 10 parishioners showing up, no one went home empty-handed.

“I was hoping it would work out this way,” said the Rev. Eugene Carella, pastor. “This way people who really, really, really wanted it were here tonight and they got them. And there were no hard feelings, so that’s good.”

. . .

Some parishes, like St. Christopher’s in Grant City, with 41 tickets, found the demand equaled the supply, and, as of Wednesday, Our Lady Star of the Sea in Huguenot still had 57 tickets available from its allotment of 143. Monsignor Jeffrey Conway, pastor of Star of the Sea, said any unclaimed tickets would be returned to the archdiocese and reapportioned to other parishes.

Older parishioners and those without the proper documentation have decided not to pursue tickets “after we explained what they’ll be getting into,” said the Rev. Michael Flynn, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Port Richmond and Our Lady of Mount Carmel-St. Benedicta in West Brighton.

Uh, I don’t think even Peter “All-You-Can-Eat Buffet” Braunstein would do something this dumb. Still, it’s funny:

Has the Ninja Burglar branched out into fashion consulting?

Probably not, but someone calling himself the “Ninja Thief” has popped up on Amazon.com to post a product review for a ninja-style “China Silk Black Balaclava.”

“It prevents sweat and hairs from being left at the scene so the police are unlikely to get a DNA print, and makes it impossible for anyone to ID you,” the rave review reads. “The perfect accessory for the professional thief. I’ve used it on over 20 thefts and haven’t got caught yet.”

The Ninja Burglar, who has 19 notches on his black belt dating to last May, mostly in Todt Hill and Grymes Hill, has been lying low since the first week of January, when cops say he made off with $225,000 in diamonds and jewelry from a house on Melhorn Road.

But his legend is rife on the Internet.

“Maybe it’s just somebody playing a game,” said a police source about the Jan. 21 post.

Still, the cops will check it out, the source said.

Midland Beach resident Gloria Barral, who spotted the review while she was shopping for vitamins for her dog and looking at silk garments, is a little more optimistic.

“I don’t know. Sometimes they get cocky,” Mrs. Barral said. “It’s very strange. I look for the review, and then this just hits me in the eye.

“You never know,” she added. “This is how crimes get solved, when you least expect it.”

The “bemusement” they “engendered”? What, is this Tokio Hotel or something? No matter:

Happy birthday, Stapleton natives and identical twin brothers Randy and Ronnie Zavattieri, and enjoy it — the next one is four years away.

The Zavattieris are either going to be 48 years old or 12 today, depending on whether you count non-leap years. The brothers are the only twins in the country born on Feb. 29, 1960, and have been soaking up the attention as this year’s leap year approached — Randy Zavattieri got to read the seventh item on David Letterman’s “Top 10″ list the last leap year, and was invited with other “leaplings” to attend Martha Stewart’s show, which will air today (1 p.m., Ch. 4).

The bemusement the young twins engendered in strangers at the Stapleton Houses seems to have subsided.

“It was different then, people didn’t pay much attention to it (leap years),” said Randy, who now lives in South Brunswick, N.J., in a phone interview this week. “People didn’t understand why me and my brother were so happy to see our birthday on the calendar, but I’m not going to see my birthday again for another four years!”

By some estimates there are 4 million leaplings in the world, about 200,000 of them in the United States. The leap year occurs to correct a drift between the astronomical start of the seasons, or equinox, and regular calendar years, called common years, by inserting an extra day into the month of February once every four years.

For most of his life, Randy Zavattieri celebrated his birthday during common years on March 1, but he changed to Feb. 28 after appearing on David Letterman’s show, when he realized that much of the country’s other leaplings celebrated on that day.

*Hey, assignment desk, run down to the City Clerk’s Office to see if this is happening today . . .

. . . the City Council sees a need to limit the size of for sale signs:

The slumping housing market is presenting a new wrinkle in the city — oversized “for sale” lawn signs that one Staten Island city councilman has made his latest quality-of-life target.

Michael McMahon (D-North Shore) yesterday introduced a bill that would limit the size of such signs throughout the city.

Claiming the signs have a “detrimental effect on the aesthetic value of New York City’s residential neighborhoods,” the proposed legislation limits “for sale” signs on residential properties to a maximum size of 4 square feet.

“While traveling in my district, I have noticed what seems to be an explosion in the size of real estate signs on front lawns to a degree that is practically obnoxious,” McMahon said in a prepared statement. “Real estate companies have the right to advertise, but let’s keep it tasteful.”

. . .

The measure is also catching flak from one Realtor, who said his signs must be large enough to attract buyers.

“If you have a property, you have to bring it to the public’s eye,” said George Wonica Sr., president of Wonica Realtors. He said the 2-by-2 foot signs McMahon is proposing are not large enough to lure business. “You might as well not have anything there. I agree with bringing it down, but I don’t think 2-by-2 is the proper dimension.”

The question remains how you get trains off an island:

They were a vision in disco-era orange and yellow when they debuted in the 1970s, subway cars to put a smile on the face of the most jaded New York straphanger.

A bunch were delivered in 1973 to Staten Island, where they became the workhorses of the railway.

They’re still reliable and mechanically sound. But all this time later, the cars are as dowdy as leisure suits and as passe as The Hustle.

To buy more time before new cars are purchased some five to eight years from now, the 64-car Staten Island Railway fleet is scheduled for an upgrade.

An $11 million mini-overhaul is planned to spruce up the floors and seats, repair leaky ceiling panels to prevent soaked bottoms, and beef up the climate-control system.

Later this year, the cars will taken two at a time to New York City Transit’s Coney Island maintenance shop in Brooklyn. Each pair will stay in the shop for about a week, and the entire fleet should be rehabbed over 12 months.

. . . but you can’t make Staten Islanders stop wanting to dump. They just can’t seem to get away from their past:

It’s been seven years since the Fresh Kills landfill closed, but it’s being replaced by miniature dumps that are springing up in neighborhoods across the borough — and the Sanitation Department is being slammed for not doing enough to stop it.

Despite the Island comprising nearly 20 percent of the city’s acreage — and more open spaces and wetlands than any other borough — only 7 percent of the fines issued by the Sanitation Department for illegal dumping in the last five years were given out here, according to an Advance analysis of Sanitation statistics.

. . .

As an Advance reporter and photographer sought out hotspots for dumping across the borough recently, neighbors marveled in disgust over people who don’t think twice before throwing garbage on remote dead-end streets, into wetlands, or along highway ditches.

“I’m astounded,” said Rossville resident Frank Lettiere, who said he often sees people driving to the corner of Woodrow Road and Veterans Road East and kicking trash and household items into the wooded hill that leads to a drainage ditch. “You can’t give people a conscience who don’t have a conscience.”

. . .

Other dumping hot spots the Advance visited include Wild Avenue by East Service Road in Travis, along Chelsea Road in Chelsea and the Graniteville Quarry off Forest Avenue.

Joanne Redhead, who lives across the street from the Elm Park site, said she’s disgusted by the frequent dumping into the lot covered by high weeds and trees.

“They come with their trucks and their cars and they dump their trash there,” Ms. Redhead said, pointing to the lot which harbors tires, several bags of trash and an old boat. “If I knew this was a dumping site, I wouldn’t have bought this house (four years ago). It’s just very nasty people. That’s really messing up the environment.”

Plans to bring Italian varietals to Staten Island are progressing:

The 2-acre Tuscan Garden Vineyard Project will be planted on a Snug Harbor hilltop by spring 2009, officials said yesterday.

“We’ll be creating, I’m sure, a serious wine,” declared winemaker Piergiorgio Castellani Jr., co-owner of Italy’s Castellani Wines.

The Italian winery, near Pisa — as in leaning tower of — produces 18 million bottles of wine annually.

Castellani estimated the 2,000-vine organic plot planned for the Staten Island Botanical Garden will produce as much as 7,000 bottles a year. The vineyard is to complement the Tuscan Garden Villa at the botanic garden.

. . .

Because the three types of grapes — merlot, cabernet sauvignon and sangiovese — he intends to plant will be the same as those used in his “Super Tuscan” wines, Castellani offered up a name for the Staten Island label.

“We will produce not a Tuscan wine,” Castellani said, “but a Super Staten Island Red.”

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, this absolutely beats the pants off tropical fish tanks:

Borough President James Molinaro, who has committed $2 million in taxpayer money to the project, said the vineyard will draw visitors.

“This is part of branding Staten Island,” Molinaro said, adding that 38% of Staten Islanders are Italian-American.

Bad news:

The wine — a name has not yet been chosen — will not be sold commercially but will go to tourists and could be served at government functions.

Which is to say, start contributing to the Borough President’s reelection campaign now. (And it’s never too early to pitch Talk of the Town.)

Fish tanks, full of tropical fish:

Tanks packed with 20 tons of water — holding 400 tropical fish and costing $750,000 — were unveiled by Mayor Bloomberg at the Staten Island ferry terminal Tuesday.

And the mayor also showcased a very fishy sense of humor.

“I just have to say, ‘holy mackerel,’” he said as his audience groaned. “What’s the porpoise, you might ask? These are beautiful tanks that are destined to become a great new attraction on Staten Island.”

The 8-foot-high tanks hold fish usually found on colorful coral reefs — including powder blue tang, Pakistani butterfly and scribbled angel.

The tanks are so heavy, steel beams have had to be used to reinforce the terminal floor.

“The tanks will exert a calming influence on harried commuters,” said Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, who was inspired after seeing similar aquariums at an airport in Sarasota, Fla.

Bloomberg is known to be a fish fan and installed tanks in his offices decades ago.

“I’ve been hooked ever since,” he said.

And Gene Russianoff is being ironic, right?

The cash for the project, which will be maintained by staff at the Staten Island Zoo, came from the borough’s capital fund.

“I really don’t think people have a reason to carp about this,” Bloomberg quipped.

Gene Russianoff, spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign, said his group had no problem with the money’s use.

Location Scout: St. George Ferry Terminal.

Potential thieves, take note — clubs are out on account of being just too loud:

Nicholas Williams, 31, who told cops he was from North Carolina, pulled out a gun inside the club and tried to hold up two men, but he had trouble getting their attention because the music was so loud, a law enforcement source said.

Williams yanked some gold chains and medallions off one victim, but as he was trying to stuff the gun and jewelry into his jacket pocket, accidentally squeezed the trigger and shot himself, the source said.

Then “panic ensued in the club,” the source said.

One thing you don’t expect after robbing a bank is getting cockblocked by a garbage truck:

Frank Russo and Patrick Crocitto were emptying baskets along Clove Road in Sunnyside just before 12:30 p.m. when they spotted a man running out of Clove Lakes Wines & Liquors at 1300 Clove, chasing a bandit and waving his arms, yelling “Robbery! Robbery!”

The Sanitation workers followed the two men in their garbage truck along Genesee Street to Seneca Avenue, where they used the truck to block the robber’s path.

Police identified the stickup man as Richard DiToro, 24, who lives with his parents on Mada Avenue in West Brighton.

Then, Russo and Crocitto, who was wielding a shovel, chased DiToro, who fell at one point during the pursuit, and threw the bag of money he had stolen, which was recovered by the store owner, Chung Lee.

Russo, a nine-year veteran of the department, caught DiToro and pinned him against a car.

Say it ain’t so:

Passengers looking to grab a cold one aboard the Guy V. Molinari and the Spirit of America ferry boats have been out of luck lately.

Instead of Budweiser tall boys, brew-seekers have found “no beer” signs since Thursday, said a cashier for the Liberty Cafe, the onboard snack shop which usually sells the beer. The problem may be a liquor license issue, according to the cashier who declined to give his name.

Beer has not been banned from the Staten Island Ferry, said city Department of Transportation spokesman Seth Solomonow. Each class of boats obtains its own liquor license from the State Liquor Authority (SLA), he said.

If the problem is with the liquor license, it would only affect the Molinari-class of boats, not the entire fleet. Only the Molinari and the Spirit of America would be affected because the John J. Marchi is out of service.

The SLA and the Liberty Cafe could not be reached for comment last night.

In the zero-sum ecosystem of economics, there are winners and losers:

The welcome mat is out for rats, as numerous homes sit vacant for lengthy periods due to the recent spike in foreclosures and the sagging real estate market on Staten Island.

The rodents find safe haven in the often unkempt properties.

Neighbors of homes that have been on the market for months or even years are frustrated by the rodent infestation and are powerless to keep the critters away.

. . .

“Many times, if there’s a foreclosure, people just walk away,” said Mark Loffredo, president of Post Exterminating Co. in Tompkinsville. “The yards get overgrown and rodents find it conducive to habitation. If they recognize that there’s nothing to stop them getting in, they will nest in the house. They do search for habitat and they’re always searching for food.”

Though there are no official counts of rats in the city, unofficial guesses range from about 8 million (or one rat per person, an old rule of thumb) to perhaps 10 times that many. That would indicate that there could be anywhere from 500,000 to almost 5 million rats on Staten Island.

Rob a guy, only get $12, then nod off in a stairwell and get caught by the fuzz:

Responding to a resident’s complaint at around 8:50 a.m., a police officer found 51-year-old Bernard Carter asleep in the fifth-floor stairwell of 168 Brabant St., in the Mariners Harbor Houses. Carter allegedly told the officer he was waiting for someone, but could not give a name, court papers said.

After arresting Carter for trespassing, the cop discovered he was wanted for allegedly robbing a man of $12 near his Roxbury Street home only three hours earlier.

. . .

Now, in addition to first- and third-degree robbery, he’s accused of criminal trespassing in a NYCHA development.

First they take our football teams, then they want to gouge us on tolls when we want to go root for the Giants:

This one will make you think twice about heading to New Jersey to shop, gamble, visit friends or sun on your favorite beach.

Do some quick math on New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s proposed toll hikes on Garden State roads, and it gets ugly really fast. By 2022, just 14 years away, football fans could end up paying $27.92 roundtrip to take the New Jersey Turnpike to Exit 16W at Giants Stadium — and that’s not counting the toll on the Goethals Bridge.

Already slammed with recently passed toll increases on the Goethals and Bayonne bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing, Island motorists who regularly travel to New Jersey may find it a much harder pill to swallow if Corzine’s proposal to hike tolls on some of the state’s busiest roads every four years is passed into law.

Corzine announced last week a proposal to increase tolls 50 percent in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 on the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey Turnpike and Atlantic City Expressway. Those increases, which would also affect a new toll on Route 440, would include inflation adjustments. Tolls would be increased every four years between 2022 and 2085 to reflect inflation.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Bernardo Mendez of New Springville, clad in a New York Giants jacket. Mendez makes regular trips to New Jersey to go bowling, shop and go to Giants games, but will reconsider doing so if the tolls spike as much as proposed. “For people with a lot of money, they don’t care, but for people working very hard just to survive, it’ll make it very hard. It will definitely have an impact on going to New Jersey as often as I used to.”

Other examples of 2022 tolls are even more egregious: A roundtrip on the Garden State Parkway to Point Pleasant Beach and back would be $15.60 and a trip to Atlantic City would be $28.74. Even the short jaunt on the Turnpike to IKEA or the Jersey Gardens mall — a destination for many Island shoppers — would cost $7.38.

As teen smoking goes decreases across the five boroughs, the rate in Republican stronghold Staten Island stays double the city average:

Higher taxes, graphic advertisements, and a crackdown on delis and bodegas are responsible for the plummeting smoking rate among city teens — but Staten Island youngsters are still puffing away at a pace almost double that of the rest of the city, data released yesterday shows.

Borough teens have the highest smoking rate in the entire city, with 14.7 percent of adolescents here smoking cigarettes, according to a report released by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials yesterday

Overall, only about 8.5 percent of city teens identified themselves as smokers in 2007.

“I’ve been smoking since I was 11; too much stress with the family,” said Hajredin Kari, 15, of the Park Hill section of Clifton, as he smoked a butt across the street from New Dorp High School yesterday afternoon. “This is the best thing. I just smoke two cigarettes one by one, and I’m money for the rest of the day.”

Michael Bloomberg, turning his back on Staten Island teens — wrong for Staten Island, wrong for America.

It’s kind of like looking for “a white van” — there are thousands of white vans out on the roads:

While other New Yorkers have been holding their heads in their hands over the steroid scandal enveloping past and present Bronx Bombers, [Benjamin] Soto wrongly spent a week in prison on Rikers Island — just for proudly wearing a Yankee jacket.

. . .

The Staten Island man’s odyssey began Nov. 10, when cops approached him with guns drawn as he walked home from his girlfriend’s house in Port Richmond.

“They were screaming, ‘Where’s the weapon? Where’s the stuff you stole? Where are the credit cards?’” he said.

“They threw me up against a fence, and I was asking, ‘What’s going on? What did I do? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’”

Turns out Soto, 35, loosely matched the description of one of three young men who had robbed a teen at knifepoint nearby. The victim told cops one of the men was wearing a Yankee jacket.

Two other men, Terence Ascensio, 17, Andre Glover, 18, were arrested separately.

Before Soto knew what was going on, he was handcuffed in front of his neighbors, hauled off to jail, arraigned on robbery charges and held in lieu of $25,000 bail — which as a YMCA custodian, he could not raise.

Voo-da-la:

Sometimes after a long day off-island, you just want to catch the boat back to the Rock and head for Town, maybe do a little train crawl along the way.

Translation: Upon returning to Staten Island by ferry from a long day elsewhere, a person might want to stop at a few of the bars that flank the stations of the Staten Island Railway, en route to an evening in downtown Great Kills.

As befits a place that can take pride in its otherness and even in its relative isolation, Staten Island has evolved, if not exactly its own language, then certainly a lexicon of words and phrases that require explanation to off-islanders.

And a linguistic journey into the heart of Staten Island leads inexorably to the Talk of the Town Tavern, a train-station bar on Great Kills’s very smalltowny main street, where Statenisms flow nearly as freely as the $2 draft mugs.

. . .

Eugene Machules, a locksmith who was feeding dollars into the Talk of the Town’s jukebox, offered one more local neologism: “Voo-da-la.”

“You say that like when you make a great shot in basketball,” Mr. Machules said. “When you hit the home run, the best shot — the top of the pinnacle, that’s it. Or if you toast someone who’s passed away, you say ‘Voo-da-la.’”

Voo-da-la, Mr. Machules said, was the signature phrase of Monte Vandenburg, a longtime bartender at another Great Kills watering hole, the Swiss Chalet.

“He’d just turn and say ‘Voo-da-la,’ and nobody knew what the hell it meant,” Mr. Machules said.

Mr. Vandenburg died suddenly in September at the age of 46. It is not clear how long Voo-da-la will survive him.

Location Scout: Talk of the Town.

. . . it’s as situation like this:

As a throng of mourners converged on Staten Island yesterday to remember the life of one of the Fire Department’s “rising stars,” the specter of his murder seemed to loom over an already grim occasion.

In the morning chill, the crowd of firefighters, police, family and friends gathered around St. Charles R.C. Church in Oakwood watched with tearful eyes as the flag-draped casket of Supervising Fire Marshal Douglas Mercereau was pulled from a waiting hearse. But many of those in attendance — including about a dozen plainclothes police officers — also cast suspicious glances at his widow, Janet Redmond-Mercereau, the sole suspect in the slaying of the 38-year-old Oakwood man.

And while sobbing echoed inside the semicircular chapel, several of those in attendance noted that Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau sat dry-eyed and stonefaced as her husband was eulogized by his brother, Thomas; his boss, Supervising Fire Marshal Louis Garcia, and Monsignor Thomas Bergin, who’d been his principal at Monsignor Farrell High School.

“It made me uncomfortable,” said Westerleigh resident Fran Hogan, a friend of the Mercereau family who attended the funeral yesterday, in respect of the suspicions swirling around Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau.

“But this was about Doug, and we stayed focused on that. The family wanted to give him a respectable, dignified funeral, and we did that,” Ms. Hogan added.

Taken out of context, it sounds rather impressive:

“It’s a great day for Staten Island,” said [Staten Island Assemblyman Michael] Cusick. “With Governor Spitzer signing this bill, he has truly given Staten Island its independence.”

. . . until you find out that he’s only talking about electing judges.

Anyone will tell you that when consorting with jailbait down at the park, it’s considered proper form to offer her a ride home afterwards:

As it is, Christopher Coppinger’s callousness after a 13-year-old girl performed a sex act in a South Beach park contributed to his prison sentence.

Coppinger, 18, of Bay Terrace, was sentenced yesterday to 10 months in jail under a plea agreement last month in which the troubled teen admitted to attempted second-degree criminal sexual act.

He and his friend Jason Talanquines, 18, were caught with two underage girls at Ocean Breeze Park in August.

Justice Leonard P. Rienzi granted Coppinger youthful offender status, which frequently indicates probation. The judge based the jail term on Coppinger’s criminal record, the youth of the two girls and “your failure to give a ride.”

. . .

Prosecutors charged that Coppinger and Talanquines picked up the two adolescents at the Grasmere train station, then drove to a wooded area in Ocean Breeze Park, where the girls serviced them. When Coppinger refused to drive the girls home and left them at the park, the 13-year-old girl called 911 and reported the incident.

How performing one’s duties as an officer of the court is like competing in the Stanley Cup playoffs:

Staten Island may become its own judicial district, and may get a new courthouse complex, but Acting Supreme Court Justice Philip Straniere isn’t touching a razor until New York state judges get a raise.

It has been almost nine years since judges have seen a salary increase, and about four months since Straniere last shaved.

“I decided not to shave while on vacation in August,” said Straniere, who is supervising judge of the Civil Court. “Then I decided it would be a good protest beard.”

State judges currently make $135,900, Straniere said.

“It sounds like a lot,” he admitted. “But no one has the same salary for nine years straight.”

And Straniere pointed out that unlike big-league ballplayers like Alex Rodriguez, judges are restricted as to how much outside income they can earn and can’t do endorsements and promotions to make up for those little salary shortfalls.

“You don’t see Nike ads for judicial robes do you?” Straniere said. “Or Hillerich & Bradsby model gavels signed by judges?”

Sports comparisons do not end there:

It’s not the first time that the jurist has gone hyper-hirsute in the the service of a good cause. Straniere also grew out his beard to protest the baseball strike that began in August 1994 and lasted into April 1995, wiping out the 1994 World Series.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Straniere said. “Baseball came back stronger than ever. Hopefully, my colleagues and I will be as successful — and without the use of steroids.”

That beard was shorn before Straniere ran for Civil Court in 1996.

Growing a beard also makes economic sense, Straniere said.

“Think of the money I’m saving on shaving cream and razor blades,” he said. “Besides, the way things are going, my beard should be long enough by Christmas for me to get work as a sidewalk Santa for some charity.”

. . . and no one feels gelt-y about it:

In the search for the thematic tchotchkes that herald the holiday season, it’s an annual lament on Staten Island that Hanukkah decorations get only a slim section of retailers’ shelf space.

But this year, cries about the scarcity of toy dreidels and blue-and-white napkins amid the dancing Santas and porcelain reindeer have grown even louder.

With the Jewish holiday coming much earlier than Christmas — it starts Tuesday — there have been anecdotal reports from across the Island of struggles to locate Hanukkah greeting cards, wrapping paper and other doodads to brighten up celebrations of the festival of lights.

“I have been trying to buy decorations for a while, there’s very, very little around,” said George Laufer, who every year decorates his daughter’s medical office, his home and nearby Congregation Ohel Abraham, where he is president. “It makes me very upset; especially when they say, ‘We haven’t gotten it in yet.’ If they’re telling us they have nothing, they’re not going to get it — Hanukkah is on Tuesday.”

Laufer said he walked out of several stores in frustration last week after combing through aisles of tree ornaments, felt stockings and wreaths, only to find puny Hanukkah displays hidden like afterthoughts, in cardboard boxes, in the back.

Well now isn’t that cute:

With all the peace, love and unity in the air at the Petrides school auditorium during yesterday’s “Day Out Against Hate” assembly, one couldn’t help but think of the feud between Borough President James P. Molinaro and District Attorney Daniel Donovan.

Both men attended yesterday’s event, the first time they have been together at a public event since Molinaro went nuclear on his former deputy in the final weeks of Donovan’s recent re-election campaign.

But unlike Martin and Lewis, or Yogi and Steinbrenner, there was no public rapprochement between the two yesterday. They did not speak.

. . .

Molinaro said he didn’t see any incongruity between the theme of yesterday’s event and the feud that he set in motion. “I don’t dislike the man,” he said afterward. “I don’t hate the man. I felt what I felt. It is what it is.”

When asked if he would make some overture to Donovan to mend the rift, Molinaro said, “There hasn’t been close contact for years, so why go there?”

Staten Islanders question the federal percent-for-art program — because when a project costs billions of dollars, it adds up:

Even as the MTA is raising tolls and tempers on Staten Island, it plans to spend as much as $4 million on art installations for the Second Avenue Subway.

Some Islanders may not know art, but all know what they want: Funds to be spent on sorely needed mass transit improvements here.

. . .

The federal government requires that one-half to 5 percent of a project’s budget be dedicated to art, said MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin.

“Art is one critical element of our stations program that has a considerable impact . . . for a small fraction of a project’s budget,” Soffin said. “We are at the lower end of the recommended guidelines, well below 1 percent.”

So it isn’t possible to eliminate the art requirement without risking the loss of the entire $1.3 billion federal contribution.

Mary DiChiara of Pleasant Plains was in no mood for explanations, “We can’t get off this Island and they put aside $4 million for artwork for Manhattan? Take the $4 million and fix this bridge.

“They think we’re living on Fantasy Island, and nobody ever wants or needs to get off.”

“Just once, I’d like to see everybody on Staten Island who works in Manhattan just stay home,” she concluded. “Then they’ll see.”

Now at least someone around here has vision:

The visit to this picturesque corner of Tuscany probably will not spawn a best-selling sequel with a title like “Under the Staten Island Sun.” But in the not-too-distant future, Staten Island will bring a little bit of Tuscany to New York, in the form of a vineyard being developed at the Staten Island Botanical Garden.

A group of businessmen from the borough spent a few days this month rambling through lush vineyards, Renaissance villas and an Etruscan tomb, seeking the essence of the Tuscan experience to transplant back home. They hope the vineyard, which they said would be the first large-scale venture of its kind in the city, will entice more visitors to the oft-forgotten borough.

. . .

Work on the vineyard should start in the spring on about two acres of botanical garden land next to the Tuscan Villa and the Tuscan Garden exhibitions under construction. (The Tuscan Garden is based on the Villa Gamberaia, at Settignano, near Florence.)

Experts in viticulture and enology at Cornell University are helping determine which Italian grape varieties will have the best chance of thriving on Staten Island, “which can get pretty damp,” Mr. Salmon said. Because it is illegal to import vine cuttings into the United States, the plants will most likely come from vineyards in upstate New York or, perhaps, California.

Eventually, the idea is to make red wine — and someday maybe white — from the 2,000 vines that organizers of the vineyard figure will be planted at the botanical garden. It will be years, however, before anyone can get a tasting of Staten Island red.

(Word of advice — when you’re naming it, don’t get cute.)