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By STEVEN DU BOIS; Times Leader Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 06, 1998 Page: 3A
WILKES-BARRE- He calls all women bitches.
So when John Ungvarsky used the term to refer to some young women walking
down Prospect Street, he says he didn’t expect it to escalate into a
bottle-throwing melee.
“That’s just the word that I call them,” said Ungvarsky, a 16-year-old GAR
High School student who lives at 114 Prospect.
The Saturday evening skirmish, which involved more than a dozen people,
resulted in several citations and rekindled concerns about the house in which
Ungvarsky lives.
Ungvarsky and his mother, Susan Alar, 40, said Tuesday that the situation
got out of hand because men drinking at a nearby bar got involved.
The incident started when five women, who had just left the bar, walked
near Ungvarsky and four male friends.
The boys playfully flirted with the women, who cited the boys’ ages when
rejecting the overture, Ungvarsky said.
After some more banter, Ungvarsky told the women that the boys were never
really interested in them, and used the offensive remark in telling them so.
The women objected to the remark, and when Ungvarsky repeated it, their
tempers flared.
“All women get called it; you have to be a woman and walk away,” said
John’s cousin, Susan Ebert.
Things were settling down, but one of the women ran to the Villa Grove bar
to get her boyfriend, Ebert said.
About seven men charged from the bar, bottles in hand.
“Some guy ran to me with his fist cocked and said, `Call me a bitch,’ ”
Ungvarsky said. “I ducked the first punch and called him a bitch.”
Soon the man and the boy were wrestling on the ground.
The other men chucked the bottles, and boys fired back. At least one man
was left bloodied after being struck in the mouth.
“If that guy didn’t jump him, none of this would have happened,” said Alar,
who joined in the fight to get the man off her son. “This did not come from my
house; it came up to my house.”
Neighbors described the fight as something out of “West Side Story,” and
complained that Alar’s house is out of control.
Mayor Thomas McGroarty cited the house as a problem during his “City Hall
for a Day” meeting with Rolling Mill Hill residents on Monday.
In September 1997, neighbors complained to City Council that drugs and
teenage drinking were rampant at the home. A man was arrested on drug
possession in the house last year.
After Saturday’s fight, Ungvarsky was cited with underage drinking.
“I’ve done some stuff, but I can’t turn back time,” said Ungvarsky, who
said he purchased the alcohol from a man on a street corner.
Alar said she has been trying hard to get along with the neighbors and is
concerned that the weekend trouble will tarnish those efforts.
“My house has been real quiet since September,” she said. “We all have a
lot of friends, and a lot of them have stopped coming here.”