Thirty Years Ago
For Marty Levin, life can still be a drag. Once the area’s most celebrated ex-smoker, the Channel 10 anchorman is now back puffing away, although at a reduced rate. A year ago Levin announced to his viewers that he planned to quit smoking on his 32nd birthday, May 22, and invited all those interested to join him in his struggle.

Levin had been inspired by the efforts of his weatherman, Mike Ambrose, who had quit smoking on his birthday. And since Ambrose got quite a reaction from the viewing audience — the switchboard lit up with calls of encouragement — Levin and Channel 10 decided to make a campaign out of it.
— CITY LIGHTS: “LIKE A CIGARETTE SHOULD,” Dan Trigoboff, April 26, 1979

Twenty-Five Years Ago
Neighborhood organizer Steve Temko and 200 of his midcity loyalists certainly got the city council’s attention last February. These residents of North Park, Normal Heights, and other neighborhoods from Park Boulevard east to 54th Street had demanded a moratorium on new apartment and condominium construction. Their councilwoman, Gloria McColl, was forced to support the building halt because she’d promised to do so last year during a heated election campaign. And Mayor Roger Hedgecock — who listens to community groups because their members tend to vote in large numbers — also promised his help for the crowded neighborhoods.
— CITY LIGHTS: “DEVELOPMENTS,” Paul Krueger, April 26, 1984

Twenty Years Ago
“We’ve got people we’ve bailed out nine, ten times this year. They fill up a whole page with their Polaroids.”

Stahlman Bail Bonds does the Hell’s Angels’ and Chargers’ business. “You never know what kind of person’s going to walk in — a nut maybe. We get a lot of nuts walking in here. You get so many different types — doctors to garbage collectors, literally. This whole thing — 80 to 85 percent — is drug related. Somebody was caught with drugs or assault because somebody’s on something.”
— “SON OF THE KING,” Elizabeth Cook, April 27, 1989

Fifteen Years Ago
I was fired from my own newspaper! The paper I had started less than a year before had just terminated me in a most humiliating way. As I sat in my bedroom two weeks after my 22nd birthday in November 1986, I reflected on the previous year and on how this could possibly have occurred. What I was experiencing was pure politics.

It had been a year since I “came out” in the San Diego gay community. Walking around University and Fifth avenues on Sunday afternoons, I had what I thought was a firsthand look at the inside of San Diego’s gay and lesbian community.
— “QUEER SAN DIEGO,” Tony Zampella, April 21, 1994

Ten Years Ago
When Vulgar Favors, Maureen Orth’s book about the murderous saga of Andrew Cunanan, hit the bestseller lists last month, a national audience was offered a sinister portrait of San Diego. She quotes Joe Sullivan, “a former crystal-meth user who knew Andrew in San Diego,” who describes a summer party circuit in La Jolla never written up by the Union-Tribune’s Burl Stiff.
— “CUNANAN’S CURSE,” Matt Potter, April 22, 1999

Five Years Ago
On November 18, 2002, pro skateboarder Neil Heddings drove his van to San Diego to pick up his two-year-old son, Marty. Heddings’s fianceé Christine Rams had come with him. They collected Marty and then drove back to San Jacinto. Five days later, on the morning of November 23, Heddings and Rams discovered that Marty was dead.

Heddings told police that Marty had fallen during a bath and hit his head. On March 3, 2003, Heddings and Rams were arrested. At their preliminary hearing, the forensic pathologist testified that the injuries were not consistent with a single fall.
— “SKATEBOARDING IS NOT A CRIME BUT MURDER IS,” Josh Board, April 22, 2004