Entertainment

NJ to probe store where ‘Jersey Shore’ kids worked

New Jersey state labor officials are investigating MTV’s “Jersey Shore” — at the urging of an Italian-American lawmaker who has been trying to get the controversial show canceled.

According to reports, state Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) urged the labor department to look into The Shore Store, the boardwalk souvenir shop where cast members were employed during the taping of the show last summer.

Officials refused to say if they were undertaking a probe, but it would be unusual for a state agency to ignore the request of a high-ranking state legislator without at least a cursory investigation.

Vitale and several other members of the state legislature’s Italian-American caucus wrote to MTV last week demanding that the series — about a group of hard-partying youngsters sharing a beach house in the resort town of Seaside Heights — be pulled off the air.

They complained that the show stereotyped young Italians as “guidos” and “guidettes,”