Jack Keenan, co-owner of popular Jersey shore bar

FOR A KID who grew up in a public-housing project, Jack Keenan did quite well for himself.

Along with his two sons, he wound up owning one of the biggest and most popular bars in North Wildwood, N.J., where he served as the host with the most for a dozen years.

But if you were to ask him what gave him his greatest pride, he no doubt would have told you his sons and his two grandchildren.

"He had such pride in his kids," said one of his sons, Scott Keenan. "He would talk about us so much, it got embarrassing."

John Keenan, known to everyone as Jack, co-owner of Keenan's Irish Pub, on Old New Jersey Avenue in North Wildwood, and a man who never got his native Grays Ferry out of his blood, died Monday of congestive heart failure. He was 66.

Jack was born and grew up in the Tasker Homes project. He was so proud of being from Grays Ferry that even after making his home in North Wildwood, he would tell anyone who asked that he was from Grays Ferry. He also kept a home in the old neighborhood.

He was a true son of South Philly. He was a Mummer who marched up Broad Street with the Shooting Stars fancy brigade every New Year's Day for 30 years.

He also maintained ties to his grade-school alma mater, St. Gabriel's Parochial School, where he was director of the Catholic youth organization.

He also served as president of the Grays Ferry Community Council.

Jack was vice president and general manager of Stelwagon Roofing Supplies, in Philly, where he worked for 27 years.

When his sons, Scott and Sean, proposed investing in a bar at the shore, Dad was opposed. It was a bad investment, he thought.

However, once the project got under way in 1998, the bar became his "most prized possession," Scott said. "He became our meeter and greeter."

Keenan's, which takes up a full block, packs them in on summer evenings. It can accommodate as many as 1,800 revelers at one time.

But the Keenans were determined to make sure that those customers were old enough to drink.

In summer '08, the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control fined Keenan's $330,000 and closed it for 80 days for allowing two underage drinkers into the bar.

Scott Keenan estimated at the time that the total loss was more than $750,000 with lawyers' fees and lost business, especially during the Irish Festival in September.

Consequently, the Keenans were in the forefront of a crackdown on underage people who flock to the Jersey shore every summer in search of fun, sun - and booze, legal or not.

Jack, who was president of the North Wildwood Tavern Owners Association, wrote an opinion piece for the Daily News in June 2009 describing the problem of new technological advances that produce authentic-looking phony driver's licenses, but promising a "zero tolerance" of underage drinking by the tavern owners.

"We are aggressively warning not only underage drinkers, but parents and siblings who aid and abet their crime, that we will go after all of them to the fullest extent provided by law," he wrote. "We want to put an end to this dangerous and unwanted Jersey shore tradition."

Jack graduated from St. Gabriel's Parochial School and attended St. John Neumann High School briefly before joining the Air Force. He served in Germany.

After his discharge, he went to work for United Parcel Service, where he was active in the Teamsters union, before joining the roofing-products company.

He married the former Peggy McCluskey in 1967.

Jack's pride in his Grays Ferry roots knew no limits. He even named his 30-foot fishing boat "Grays Ferry."

In an unfortunate incident in 1997, Jack took a fellow Mummer, Alphonse "Duke" Norbutas, a devoted fisherman whose lifelong dream was to pull in a large tuna, out in the boat. They went 53 miles into the Atlantic on Sept. 15 that year.

Sure enough, Duke hooked his dream, an 80-pound tuna. But after the long, hard fight to bring it in, Duke collapsed and died of a heart attack.

"That fish just beat him up," Jack said at the time.

Son Scott said that since word of his father's death has gotten around, there has been an outpouring of people who knew and loved him expressing their regrets.

"He was a neat guy," Scott said. "We were very proud of him."

Besides his wife, two sons and two grandsons, Jack and Brody, he is survived by three brothers, Kevin, Keith and Brian, and three sisters, Peggy, Mary and Doll. He was predeceased by two sisters, Barbara and Patty.

Services: Funeral Mass 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Gabriel's Church, 29th and Dickinson streets. Friends may call at 5 this evening at the church. Burial will be in Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery, Marple.