Hospital Charges A Mystery To Many

If you need hip replacement surgery, you will face a wide range of charges here, depending on the hospital you choose.

Lancaster Regional Medical Center charged the most for major joint replacement surgery, $60,434, of the four hospitals here, according to a recent federal report on 2011 charges.

Across town, Lancaster General Hospital charged the least, $37,761, about $23,000 less than Regional.

But hang on to your crutches, patients.  There’s more.

Though LGH charged the least, Medicare, the federal insurance for the elderly paid it the most of all the hospitals here, $13,400.

Confused yet? Join the club.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/848413_Hospital-charges-a-mystery-to-many.html#ixzz2T2HQPO3o

Amish Experience Halts ‘Amish Mafia Tour’ After Legal Threat

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hold on chust a minute: “Amish Mafia” fans won’t get to see Lebanon Levi’s “office” or his crew of enforcers’ stomping grounds after all.

Producers of the hit “reality” show have threatened legal action against Bird-in-Hand-based The Amish Experience, which had plans for an extensive tour of the show’s local sites, beginning this month.

Many scenes for the Discovery Channel series — which just wrapped a second season of filming — were shot in Lancaster County.  The tour, its organizer said, would have included a behind-the-scenes glimpse of filming locations while debunking the show’s portrayal of a group of violent Amish protectors.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/847682_Amish-Experience-halts–Amish-Mafia-Tour–after-legal-threat.html#ixzz2Sv2jfUcK

Lititz: Pretzels, Chocolate And History Draw Hip Tourists

Editor’s note:  Awesome write up from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about Lititz!

LITITZ, Lancaster County — “Why did we come here? To eat pretzels, of course!” said Sue Jones of Churchill, who, along with other members of a Pittsburgh bowling team, rolled into the 152-year-old Sturgis Pretzel Bakery and museum during Pretzel Fest 2013.

“I love pretzels — I’m addicted to them,” she laughed.

“But you’ve got to put yellow mustard on them,” added Doris Libell of East Pittsburgh, wearing a Penguins T-shirt.

This community of 9,000 people in northern Lancaster County — recently named Budget Travel’s 2013 Coolest Small Town in America — has a seven-block downtown area crammed with stone and woodbeam houses built in the late 1700s, a pre-Revolutionary War hotel built by Gen. Johann Sutter, a Moravian Protestant church built in 1749, plus several restaurants, taverns and quaint shops selling antiques, books, furniture and much more.

But Lititz is becoming popular with tourists mainly for two things — pretzels and chocolate candy.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/life/travel/lititz-pretzels-chocolate-and-history-draw-hip-tourists-686327/#ixzz2SWP99hOq

Tourism Officials Hope Casting A Wider Nets Brings More Tourists To Lancaster County

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The county’s tourism promotion board will soon launch a multifaceted campaign it hopes will catch the eye of as many as 100 million people.

It hopes many of of them will come here and spend money.

The Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau plans to diversify the $1.6 million it will spend on advertising this year.

In addition to a television commercial that will soon be aired in the Philadelphia and New York markets, the visitors bureau also will buy digital and static billboards to reinforce the same message.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/842667_Tourism-officials-hope-casting-a-wider-nets-brings-more-tourists-to-county.html#ixzz2Rc8YwZ9q

Centralized Jobs Are A Bonus For Lancaster

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Lancaster County has kept an unusually high percentage of its jobs in Lancaster city and suburbs, a new study shows.

The concentration of jobs in the city and suburbs here makes it easier for job-seekers to find work, the study’s author says.

Having centralized jobs also reduces traffic congestion, lowers energy consumption and cuts pollution, she says.

“Generally, we say that more compact forms of development are positive,” said author Elizabeth Kneebone.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/839044_Centralized-jobs-are-a-bonus-for-Lancaster.html#ixzz2QvJnTd3X

‘Coolest Small Town’ Label Bringing More Visitors To Lititz

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So, are new faces showing up in Lititz these days, checking out the “Coolest Small Town in America?”

“I voted — that’s why you won,” laughed Rose Anne Manfredi of Long Island, N.Y., Sunday afternoon as she and her husband, Ron, both 62, strolled through Lititz Springs Park.

The couple was staying in Ephrata 25 years ago. Needing a place to eat, they thumbed through a phone book and thought the General Sutter Inn sounded interesting.

They fell in love with Lititz and have been making annual pilgrimages ever since.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/838088_-Coolest-Small-Town–label-bringing-more-visitors-to-Lititz-.html#ixzz2QYUFaizs

Lancaster Convention Center Sews Up Quilt Show For 3 More Years

Quilting is a tradition in Lancaster County and organizers of the annual downtown Lancaster quilt show hope to sew up that link between quilting and Lancaster.

The Paducah, Ky.-based American Quilters Society on Wednesday announced it would continue the show at the Lancaster County Convention Center for another three years.

The deal was inked a month ago when some 16,500 quilters attended AQS QuiltWeek in Lancaster.

The national organization called the fourth annual show and convention a success.  That attendance figure represents an 11 percent increase over 2012.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/837065_Convention-Center-sews-up-quilt-show-for-3-more-years.html#ixzz2QH8D8T4b

Lancaster County Jobless Rate Drops in February

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Lancaster County’s unemployment rate slipped to 6.8 percent in February, the state Department of Labor & Industry said Tuesday.

By declining slightly from January’s 6.9 percent, the county’s rate remained among the best in Pennsylvania.

Of the state’s 14 metropolitan areas, only State College (6.0 percent) and Lebanon (6.7 percent) had better unemployment rates.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre had the worst, at 9.8 percent.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/833506_County-jobless-rate-drops-in-Feb-.html#ixzz2PLlDgtjp

Ephrata Toy Store Plays With The Big Boys

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If someone asked you to name the nation’s five best toy stores, it’s doubtful that The Fun-est Toy Store Ever would make the list.

But guess again.

According to the tourist-friendly travel website, Rates To Go, the Ephrata toy shop at 24 E. Main St., is one of America’s top five toy stores.  That puts the store up alongside the enormous Toys R Us in New York’s Times Square, Ambassador Toys in San Francisco, the huge LEGO Store in Chicago, and the world famous FAO Schwarz, where actor Tom Hanks danced on the gigantic floor piano in the movie “Big.”

“I was shocked,” store owner Melissa Palermo-Spero said when asked her reaction to the news. “I don’t know how we came to being put in the same category as some of these really large, well-known, iconic toy stores.”

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/820204_Ephrata-toy-store-plays-with-the-big-boys.html#ixzz2MEUqa9kG

Armstrong’s Yearly Profit Climbs

Armstrong World Industries today reported a small drop in net profits for the fourth quarter but a sizable increase for the year.

For the quarter, net profits slid 1.2 percent to $8.4 million (14 cents a share) from $8.5 million (14 cents a share) in the 2011 quarter.

Sales dipped 1.6 percent to $612.8 million.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/816802_Armstrong-s-yearly-profit-climbs.html#ixzz2LOK0sAFf

More Talk Of Snow Than Snow On The Ground

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In less than two weeks, March will roar in.

And, if the forecast and history are indicators of what lies ahead, this winter is likely to go down as one of the meekest of the past decade, in terms of snow.

For the winter of 2012-13, Millersville University‘s Weather Information Center had recorded just 7 inches of snow falling on Lancaster County through noon Thursday.  Another 1.5 inches had fallen by Sunday evening, the result of several small storms.

Now consider this:

A warming trend is on the way, according to Accuweather.com, with high temperatures approaching 50 degrees expected by the time February turns to March.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/816311_More-talk-of-snow-than-snow-on-the-ground.html#ixzz2LDYMYHWX

Lititz Wins Coolest Small Town In America Contest

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“Free Moravian Sugar Cake and Wilbur Buds for Everyone???”  Sandy Hendricks Morris proposed on the Downtown Lititz Facebook page.

Lititz and those who love it were in a celebratory mood Saturday after learning it really is “America’s Coolest Small Town.”

The borough north of Lancaster, known for its chocolate, pretzels and Moravian heritage, won Budget Travel‘s online contest after nearly 100,000 votes were cast for 924 towns.

Self-described Lititz “cheerleader” Gaylord Poling said he learned of the honor Friday evening on the Budget Travel website.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/815782_Lititz-is-coolest.html#ixzz2L5GHlMVA

Lancaster Inter-Municipal Committee Down, Not Out

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Editor’s note:  We are always saddened when parties leave the table, especially with something as an important as this.  Cooperation between the city and the suburbs leads to smart growth, regional planning, inter-municipal cooperation and the list goes on and on.  Manheim Township is the largest suburb of Lancaster so one would assume their dues had something to do with their size.  In any case, $22,000 is a blip on their budget so not seeing where this will be a huge help to taxpayers.

Lancaster city and three of its suburban townships cross paths in Bridgeport, the busy little crossroads just east of town.

Two major state roads — Route 340 and Route 462 — meet there, and there is plenty of housing and other growth putting more pressure on roads and water in that area, East Lampeter Township Supervisor John Blowers said.

So he’s glad his township is part of the Lancaster Inter-Municipal Committee, Blowers said Wednesday.

In coming years, whenever the city and East and West Lampeter and Lancaster townships sit down to talk about solutions in Bridgeport, “we’re going to have a history of having talked and having worked together” as fellow members of the LIMC, Blowers said.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/815068_Lancaster-Inter-Municipal-Committee-down–not-out.html#ixzz2KuMk2T3v

Man Charged With Assaulting, Torturing Elderly Sisters Waives Hearing

A 22-year-old man will be tried for binding, beating and torturing three elderly Mennonite sisters last year in what police called a case of “ethnic intimidation.”

Dereck Taylor Holt and his attorney, Alan Goldberg, waived a preliminary hearing Tuesday morning on numerous offenses, including felony aggravated assault, robbery, unlawful restraint and reckless endangerment.

In turn, District Judge Tony Russell ordered Holt to be tried on 23 charges related to the Dec. 14 incident in Clay Township.

Holt, locked up on $1 million bail since his arrest Dec. 16, appeared in the Ephrata courtroom only to sign paperwork.  He said nothing.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/811494_Man-charged-with-assaulting–torturing-elderly-sisters-waives-hearing.html#ixzz2K3oNvcKr

Lancaster County Jobless Rate Rises Again, To 6.7%

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Lancaster County has thousands more people working than a year ago.

Sadly, it also has hundreds more people looking for work without success.

That’s pretty much why the unemployment rate here has been spinning its wheels.

Lancaster County’s jobless rate rose to 6.7 percent in December, the state said Monday

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/808422_Lancaster-County-jobless-rate-rises-again–to-6-7-.html#ixzz2JPrKeKmB

Mount Joy Borough Demotes Its Police Chief

Mount Joy Borough Council demoted its police chief to sergeant on Monday, finding he failed to “meet administrative expectations of the position.”

The decision ends six months of limbo for the borough and John O’Connell, who had been on paid administrative leave since July.

Bill Hall, chairman of the public safety committee, called the demotion a “reassignment agreement and release” that was agreed to by the borough and O’Connell in a motion offered to council.

Council voted 7-1 for the demotion, with Councilman Barry Mowrer opposing.  Councilman John Hiestand was absent.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/808599_Mount-Joy-Borough-demotes-its-police-chief.html#ixzz2JPq5KI6I

Abundance Of Attractions Makes Lancaster County Marketable

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lancaster County, Kathleen Frankford contends, is no one-trick pony.

“It’s probably the most diverse destination in the country,” she said.

Sure, it is known for its Amish and the outlet shopping that attracts people by the busload.  But, there is also live entertainment, dining and lodging.

And, “within each of those categories, you have such a wide range of offerings,” Frankford said.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/807662_Abundance-of-attractions-makes-Lancaster-County-marketable.html#ixzz2JEbUTqMC

Amish Farmer Charged With Killing Young Eagle

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An Upper Leacock farmer fed up with birds of prey killing his free-range chickens has been charged with shooting an immature bald eagle.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission charged Paul A. Zook, 28, of the 100 block of Geist Road with two misdemeanors of the state Game and Wildlife Code.

One count is for killing an endangered or threatened species and one count is for unlawful taking and possession of protected birds.

Zook, an Amish farmer, could face up to two years in jail and fines up to $5,000 if found guilty and depending on the feelings of the judge.  In addition, a judge could require Zook to pay up to $5,000 to “replace” the eagle.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/806328_Amish-farmer-charged-with-killing-young-Eagle.html#ixzz2Ika5B9Sh

Lititz Leads In ‘Coolness’ In Online Contest Run By Budget Travel

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Editor’s note:  We totally agree!!!

Brian Volpone walks a half-mile to work each day through the streets of Lititz.

He loves inhaling the warm chocolate smell emanating from Wilbur Chocolate.  He also enjoys looking at the town’s historic buildings and soaking in its family-friendly vibe.

Volpone, 46, thinks Lititz is “America’s Coolest Small Town.”  And so do a bunch of other folks, who are voting online in a national contest being hosted by Budget Travel on its website, budgettravel.com.

“It’s such a neat little place,” said the father of four, who works at Luthercare as a network administrator and is married to a Lititz native, Bev.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/806306_Lititz-leads-in–coolness–in-online-contest-run-by-Budget-Travel.html#ixzz2IkY0VcsM

Doorstep Dairy Revives Lost Service With Home Deliveries Of Milk, Other Staples

Nostalgia knocks on Margie Haile’s door every Wednesday night.

That’s the evening the Wyomissing Park mother gets a delivery from Doorstep Dairy.

“It’s modern convenience meets something old-fashioned,” she said of the service that brings milk, eggs and more to her porch, “and my kids love the taste of the milk.”

Doorstep Dairy is the brainchild of Daryl Mast.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/799486_Doorstep-Dairy-revives-lost-service-with-home-deliveries-of-milk–other-staples.html#ixzz2HKRYneNR