Drivers buying pepper spray at The Spy Mart to advert attacks

Drivers buying pepper spray to advert attacks

DRIVERS fearful of becoming victims of an assault are turning to their spice racks for protection.

That’s right, condiments. As in say dash of pepper.

Oleoresin capsicum, an oily resin derived from cayenne pepper, may literally be the hottest selling item of holiday shopping season. Merchants and manufactures say sales of the small spray cans have skyrocketed in New Jersey in the recent rash of abductions and carjacking.

“Our sales in New Jersey are just going through the roof." The vice president of a security store in New Port Richey, Fla. The manufactory of MACE, the chemical compound temporarily stuns its victims. Mace FP (fortified with pepper) made solely from cayenne pepper, said his sales have doubled in the past few weeks due the reports of carjacking. “A lot of it is a result of what’s happening in New Jersey," he said.

MSI , which sells its products wholesale and retail, has been inundated with telephone call from New Jersey residents inquiring about the best way to protect them selves, said Kelly Gannon, an MSI marketing representative who fields many of the calls.

“ I think it’s an overall fear," Gannon said. “They say they don’t feel safe driving to work or walking on the streets."

The pepper spray operates the same way as Mace . When sprayed into the face of an aggressor, the mixture attacks the mucous membranes, causing him to immediately shut his eyes and gasp for air. The discomfort wears off in about 20 minutes with no after effects.

In the last two weeks, The Spy Mart in Marlboro Township has sold 80 cases of Mace FP, according to Marvin Badler, the store’s owner. That’s 960, three-quarter-once cans at $19.95 a can. Badler said his is a timely business. “We opened three months ago and we are doing very well," said Badler a licensed private investigator in New Jersey, New York, Florida and Tennessee. The products are legal in New Jersey and many other states in amounts of no more then three-quarters of an ounce. “It’s happening all over the country, although more on the east coast t that anyplace else.

“Badler said. “I’ve heard reports from Texas, Detroit and other place with people grabbing cars Of course the public has been exposed to the possibility of a carjacking." Locally, customers who are buying the spray always mention the car jacking, Badler said. Many bring up the Nov. 3 incident in Piscataway Township in which a women , mother of three, was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death after an attacker forced his was into her van. “The people who were looking for her came in and brought a lot of Mace from us," Badler said. “We have an office complex buying it by the case. Also, a major department store in the Freehold Raceway Mall is purchasing Mace for all their employees."

Badler said he has ordered 400 can of Mace for the department store, which he refused to name.

And last Friday night, a woman was sexually assaulted and robbed in a wooden field between Steinbach’s department store and Bradlees, off route 9 in Manalapan Township, after she finished shopping.

Badler has recently gone on line with www.thespymart.com and is doing well.