Carlsbad news & stories

Hot Corner

On July 9, 1942, just after graduating high school, Severine Kelly was visiting her grandparents in Carlsbad. While walking to the beach with a girlfriend, an Army truck pulled over at the corner of Highway ...

Swift Serenade

Luke Walton, an 18-year-old Carlsbad resident and recent graduate of La Costa Canyon High, is getting popular because of a song he sort of wrote, a love song for Taylor Swift. He posted it on ...

Poolhardy

Just like most other communities in the county, Carlsbad’s finances are tanking. The City’s finance experts are projecting a deficit during the next three years. For the first quarter of the current fiscal year, general-fund ...

Flush It, Sell It

Mike Hogan walks toward a small pile of treated sewage sludge, a moist, black, lumpy, faintly malodorous substance inside a newly expanded processing plant at Encina wastewater treatment facility in Carlsbad. “That’s what biosolids look ...

The Fields Church of Carlsbad

A chill clung to the air as the service began; it would be 11 minutes before the sun crested the hill to reveal the ranunculus and warm the 900 or so souls gathered in the ...

Good Day to Drown

As Carlsbad residents took advantage of a sunny Friday morning at the beach, paddling into head-high waves, jogging and biking on the boardwalk, a group of Orange County firefighters plunged into the channel at the ...

Towers Land in North County

Beachgoers are noticing the changes on the sand at Seaside, Cardiff Reef, Ponto, South Carlsbad, and Tamarack beaches. A California icon, the classic lifeguard tower, has had an extreme makeover. The old, less-angular fiberglass towers ...

Highway to the Danger Zone

Carlsbad city councilmember Matt Hall stood before the Encinitas City Council on Wednesday, January 14, and asked for their support in opposing a proposed power plant near the Agua Hedionda Lagoon in Carlsbad. The applicant, ...

The Uncertain Fate of the Falls

Mel Vernon leans against a black steel fence behind Quarry Creek Shopping Center, on the border of Carlsbad and Oceanside. Above him towers a massive signpost facing the traffic on State Route 78. Below him ...

On the Road

At a December 17 Oceanside City Council meeting, councilmembers Jerry Kern, Rocky Chavez, and Jack Feller voted in favor of awarding La Mesa's Helix Environmental Planning, Inc. an extra $247,000 for an environmental impact report ...

Oceanside Councilmember Suggests Carlsbad Boycott

At the November 19th Oceanside City Council meeting, Caltrans along with shopping mall giant, Westfield Group, appealed the Planning Commission’s decision to support Jefferson Enterprises proposal to build a 92-acre shopping plaza in Oceanside, near ...

Greased Lining

On Tuesday night, the Carlsbad City Council issued an order to the city’s 184 restaurants...and it wasn’t for take-out, either. The city council voted unanimously to add a subsection into the city’s municipal code, Title ...

Back to the Tap

Faith Paulus remembers growing up in the ’50s, the good old days of playing in the sprinklers and drinking from the hose on a hot day, when people could spend hours outside without a plastic ...

The Morning After Mess

The Fourth of July is about celebration. It's about honoring our country, our freedoms, while tossing a few back with family and friends — not on the beach of course — and watching the spectacular ...

North Coast Calvary Chapel

Portrait of a church on the cusp: North Coast Calvary Chapel, founded as a home Bible study in Encinitas, was housed five years in a YMCA, then ten years in the Vulcan Center (now Encinitas ...

True Lagoon

“In June 2000, the highly invasive Caulerpa taxifolia — the aggressive algae which has destroyed thousands of acres of the Mediterranean Sea — was discovered [in the Agua Hedionda Lagoon], most likely dumped into the ...

Less Dense, Fewer Homeless, More Sky

Having lived in San Diego since 1980, one would think that I would have long ago gravitated to residence in the northern portion of the county. It seems, by consensus, to be more generally livable ...

Neighborhood Watch

I attended two parties in one night, though both of them started early in the evening. I hoped the second one would run late. The first was at Brick by Brick. Astra Kelly, a DJ ...

Watch the Birdie

“There is a kind of goofy stereotype of birdwatchers, that birders always have that funny hat and something like a fishing vest with all those pockets,” says biologist Tom Troy. “I don’t have one, but ...

Noise Police

“Carlsbad’s gotten ugly,” says a musician who supports himself by playing music in Carlsbad clubs. Following noise complaints by nearby residents, the City of Carlsbad is enforcing a new entertainment ordinance that went into effect ...

Jarhead Red

"First to Fight for Right and Freedom," reads the title of the big military print on the tasting room wall at Carlsbad Wine Merchants. The painting depicts a group of Marines moving along a ruined ...

Underserviced

Portland didn’t agree with marketing VP Kathy Bankerd. Her employers at the tech company InFocus had moved her up north and bought her a house, but she still hadn’t sold her home in sunny SoCal. ...

Two Exec Jets Flying

Speaking of private flying, the most dangerous local airport of 2007 turned out to be County-owned McClellan-Palomar in Carlsbad, with a total of five fatalities in two separate accidents. The first, on April 29, involved ...

All That's Left

Israel and Lebanon were at war. England and Argentina were at war. In Hollywood, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed. Navy beat Army 24-7, the Chargers beat the Dolphins 41-38 to make it to ...

The Sarcastic Killer

A boy 3-1/2 months old was the youngest homicide victim in San Diego County during the first half of 2007. The oldest was a 75-year-old woman. Both were killed by family members, allegedly, the infant ...

Grape Landscape

"The ethos," says Norby, "was to blend in and respect nature, be part of it."

Carlsbad

Name: Phil Boone Home: Carlsbad Vehicle: 1939 Ford Fordor Deluxe Surfing: Carlsbad "You never think you're going to get old," Phil Boone says. "You never plan for it. I'm retired now. Spent 28 years as ...

Clampdown in Carlsbad

Because of complaints by residents during the past eight months, the Carlsbad City Council is considering enacting an ordinance that would forbid local bars from emitting noise greater than 60 decibels after 10 p.m. "There ...

Townsend Car Dealership, 1974

Showroom in San Diego County. (Townsend Lincoln-Mercury in Carlsbad closed in July 2006.) This Townsend sold American Motors and Jeep. The car is an AMC Gremlin, considered the first American subcompact when introduced in 1970. ...

Now Flog This

Last month, Carlsbad-based accordion player Matt Hensley said he would no longer tour with Flogging Molly, the band he co-founded ten years ago. He was the only local member of the Irish punk band; the ...

Hosp Grove in Carlsbad features easy hiking and a chance to spot migrating monarch butterflies.

For better or worse, eucalyptus trees from Australia have become a major component of San Diego's contemporary "urban forest." More than a century ago, in locales such as the UCSD campus, Rancho Santa Fe, Scripps ...

Clamber onto a skull-shaped promontory rising above interior Carlsbad.

At 513 feet in elevation, Cerro de la Calavera (translated "Skull Hill" and also known as Mount Calavera) rises modestly above lesser hills and valleys of Oceanside, Vista, and Carlsbad. Picturesque Calavera Lake lies at ...

Mr. and Mrs. Downer

I found out about a retirement home having a party on the beach in Oceanside. The idea of old guys on the beach didn't sound appealing, but the party was for the employees, not the ...

Define Irie

"I am told 'irie' means getting high and Stone Senses mean your senses are getting stoned," says Ofelia Escovedo, board of directors president of Carlsbad's annual Fiesta del Barrio. At a meeting last week, the ...

At Home in San Diego

LA COSTA When I think of La Costa, I remember the wildlife -- the skunk that lived under our house, for instance, a beautiful creature whose size would double when it puffed up its fur ...

Enjoy salt-laden breezes and abundant bird life along the shore of Batiquitos Lagoon.

Just beyond the placid north shore of North County's Batiquitos Lagoon, white flecks of shell glint in the sunlight where the land begins to rise. Prior to around two centuries ago, and back as far ...

Carlsbad's Big Bertha Bombs

By definition, an avid golfer is one who, horrified to learn that his sister has become a hooker, frantically phones her and shouts, "Think of the family reputation! Try widening your stance! Soften your grip! ...

Rescue People Are Very Angry

Both sides agree the seeds of the dispute were planted in 2000 when the County Board of Supervisors announced that the three county animal shelters -- in Carlsbad, Linda Vista, and Bonita -- would be ...

Best of 2003: Best Old-Fashioned Tree Swing

Hospital Park Carlsbad Just west of Plaza Camino Real, south-running Jefferson Street hits Marron Road and turns due west. Follow it and pull into Hospital Park, the first driveway on the left. Walk south past ...

Best of 2003: Best Access To Relics Of Our Musical Past

Museum of Making Music 5790 Armada Drive, Carlsbad www.museumofmakingmusic.org 760-438-5996 The Museum of Making Music displays instruments, artifacts, and historical records documenting the evolution of music-making devices. Instruments once owned by celebrities are popular tour ...

Best of 2003: Best New York- Style Pizza

Knockout Pizzeria 2959 Carlsbad Boulevard, Carlsbad 760-434-4468 They don't do California thin crust. They don't do deep-dish. They don't do chicken. They won't do pineapple. They call their pizzas "pies." And they do sell by ...

Best of 2003: Best Acoustic Guitar-Head Store

Buffalo Brothers 2270-C Camino Vida Roble, Carlsbad www.buffalobrosguitars.com 760-431-9542 The average cost of a guitar from this industrial park warehouse is $3000. Although brothers Bob and Tim Page also sell electric guitars, their inventory of ...

Best of 2003: Best North County Bike Tune-Up

Pacific Coast Cycle 2801 Roosevelt Street, Carlsbad 760-729-7671 Bicycle frames and wheels hang from the open beams of this small shop with patchwork wood floors. Customers stroll in and linger, swapping jokes and stories with ...

Best of 2003: Best Garden Furniture

Akakora 5670 El Camino Real, Suite C, Carlsbad www.akakora.com/new/home.asp 760-930-4348 Ayman Suleiman discovered a Venezuelan process that fuses stained glass, cement, and wrought iron to create decorated garden tables, chairs, and benches. He is now ...

Yes — higher earning potential justifies the investment 31 votes

No — better to just enter the workforce straightaway 13 votes

Depends on the degree earned 53 votes

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