La Jolla Stories | San Diego Reader

Torrey Pines State Reserve Extension

See magnificent and rare Torrey pines in this lesser-known state reserve.

San Diego is a unique and exciting city for many reasons, and the remarkably rare Torrey pine is near the top of that list. Most San Diego residents can probably tell you where to find ...

Chabad Jewish Synagogue Center of La Jolla

Membership: 120 Rabbi: Baruch Shalom Ezagui Age: 34 Born: Montreal, Canada Formation: Rabbinical College of Montreal, Canada; Yeshiva Geloda Lubavitch, London, England; Educational Institute Oholei Torah, Brooklyn, NY; Yeshiva Gedola of New Haven, Conn., Rabbinical ...

Tased and Subdued, Throttled and Killed

It was March 2009 when the British-born siblings Gillian Ison and John Graham Watson met at Zermatt, a resort in the shadow of Switzerland’s Matterhorn. There, with family members, they indulged a passion for skiing: ...

La Jolla High School “Senior Benches,” Free Speech at Last

A statement posted on the San Diego and Imperial County ACLU website on February 16 indicates a settlement has been reached on a yearlong free-speech case at La Jolla High School. In February 2011, principal ...

"I Promise" Benefit Show

“San Diego is such a volatile music scene,” says Jesse Kranzler, an organizer of the three-day “I Promise” Che Café benefit show. “One venue or group of bands usually keeps it going, especially in the ...

Pride and Prejudice: Milk Like Sugar at the La Jolla Playhouse

Playwright Kirsten Greenidge does not use the restroom during intermission when her plays are performed. “I get so wary about what I’m going to overhear,” she admits. “You have no voice in that situation. You ...

Democrats Ante Up $27,000 to Park and Rec

Rancho Santa Fe–based political fund-raiser Karolyn Dorsee spent the first half of this year collecting cash for the GOP’s New Majority California PAC, which is out to “broaden the appeal of the Republican Party.” Dorsee ...

When in Aroma

Whew. Sniffing the rarified air of La Jolla. Wandering along Prospect at about 2:00 in the afternoon. Muggy hot. Looking for burgers. Promised the lovely Carla I’d take her back a nice big fat one. ...

The Surf’s Up at La Jolla Shores! Your Wallet’s Gone!

"Do you hear that? Is that my car alarm?” Gus Neves asked as we walked up Naga Way to La Jolla Shores Drive after an early morning surf session at Scripps Pier. We rounded the ...

County Seeks Psychologist to Assess Workplace Threats and Romney Collects Money in La Jolla

It’s a dangerous place out there in the public sector. Witness the County of San Diego, currently seeking a contractor “experienced in risk assessment for public entities in potential workplace violence.” According to a request ...

La Jolla Strip Club's Moscow Mule

La Jolla Strip Club bartender Jim Sloan tells me that his formal education in vodka began two years ago, when he signed on as La Jolla Strip Club’s bar manager. “I never knew as much ...

Two Little La Jolla Parks

The La Jolla Heights Open Space clings to a patch of chaparral-clad hillside overlooking the village of La Jolla. Pottery Canyon is essentially a secluded ravine, right off busy Torrey Pines Road. Both are small ...

A Night Together

When my friend Kerry finally decided to move down to San Diego from Santa Barbara, I thought we'd have nothing but time together. She and Mia were among the lucky few to keep up a ...

House Fire in La Jolla

Shortly after 11:00 a.m. today, May 13, a fire broke out in a residence in the 600 block of Rushville Street. According to witnesses and emergency workers, the owners of the home had been burning ...

Chedi's American Thai

It’s not the windy city, the motor city, least of all the center city. It’s not Linda Vista, City Heights, or Convoy Street. It’s La Jolla, right? So the chic, newish Thai restaurant that’s been ...

Predator in Print: MainStreet Media Snarls at Two Local Papers

On Valentine’s Day, Anthony Allegretti, president of MainStreet Media Group, a company that publishes eight community newspapers in San Diego County, wrote letters to two fellow publishers. One went to Jim Kydd, owner of the ...

Carpenters Union Members Picket at Scripps La Jolla

On Monday afternoon, March 28, visitors and patients arriving at Scripps La Jolla Hospital were greeted at the parking entrance by two gentlemen from Carpenters Local Union 1506. The flyers they were distributing spelled out ...

Shortcuts: Lemon Grove to Casa de Mañana near the Children’s Pool in 40 minutes

Who: Jan Davis Car: 2007 Chevy HHR. Mileage about 41,000 so far. Gets very good mileage on the open road. I have driven 600 miles to my sister’s house in Sonoma County on less than ...

Little Miss Sunshine at La Jolla Playhouse

So how do you re-create a road movie on stage? Best of show at La Jolla Playhouse’s hit-and-miss Little Miss Sunshine: David Korins’s set, enhanced by Ken Billington’s bold lighting, depicts the shifting geography from ...

David Copley Retains High-Priced Downtown Influence Peddler

It wasn’t so long ago that David Copley enjoyed free rein at city hall, easily convincing the City’s Planning Department to allow him to combine a cluster of adjacent houses on La Jolla’s Virginia Way ...

Bishops Building Up? La Jolla Conversation Is Not Done

"I think what has happened over the past couple of weeks is a travesty," said Joe LaCava, chair of La Jolla's community planning group, during the February 9 meeting of San Diego's planning commission. LaCava ...

The Big Rich, Part Two

In last week’s cover story, we described how two of America’s richest and most powerful oil barons took a small La Jolla hotel called Del Charro and turned it into an unlikely base for their ...

Oil and Politics in La Jolla

How two Texas oilmen ran Del Mar and national politicians from a La Jolla hotel.

Hotel del Charro: PART ONE It was the vortex of a dark universe, hiding in plain sight. “At La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya), San Diego’s northern suburb,” the New York Times reported on January 17, ...

Mitt Romney Lobbies for La Jolla Permit, Darwin Deason Lobbies City Planner

The local housing market may be dead for mere mortals, but as far as the nation’s megamillionaires and billionaires are concerned, coastal La Jolla is in hypergrowth mode. Ex–Massachusetts governor and likely future GOP presidential ...

Seal You Later, Says San Diego Planning Commission

The fight surrounding seals and the public’s access to Children's Pool in La Jolla resurfaced during the San Diego Planning Commission's December 9 meeting. The commission heard an appeal of a September 15 decision to ...

Ruined at the La Jolla Playhouse

If plays are boxing matches with an audience, they all throw punches, some solid, some glancing, some airy nothing. Plays that linger counterpunch. These land on your way out the door, in the parking lot, ...

La Jolla Shores Has It All — Surf, Sand, and Sea Creatures

For beachcombing, tidepool exploration, and all-over suntanning, the coastal stretch north of La Jolla Shores can’t be beat. This coming winter’s extreme low tides (typically a tide of -1 foot or lower) are especially conducive ...

Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin

An alert to my colleagues in the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle: I hereby nominate Rob McClure for a Craig Noel Award, Lead Performance in a Musical, Male. His Charlie Chaplin in Limelight, at the ...

La Jolla Presbyterian Church

Membership: 1500 Pastor: Paul Cunningham Age: 43 Born: Fresno Formation: Santa Clara University, Santa Clara; Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ; Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL Years Ordained: 16 years San Diego Reader: Can you think ...

Shred Gnarnia

“The greatest thing about this camp is that you really get to see that kids are such a wealth of creativity,” says Christine Gilardi, three-year director of a real-life School of Rock in La Jolla. ...

Slippery, Not Smelly

As if the stingray “attacks” of a few weeks ago weren't enough, now we have the beaches of La Jolla Shores getting slimed by green algae. A roving La Jolla lifeguard told me on August ...

A Quiet Senior Center with a Little Ramp

Should members of affluent communities blush when their leaders go scounging for federal assistance? Probably not in the view of Lynda Hunt, who was interviewed by the La Jolla Village News in May 2006. “San ...

La Jolla Lutheran Church

Membership: 70 individuals Pastor: Mark Dahle Age: 54 Born: Seattle, Wash. Formation: Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, Ill.; Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Wash. Years ordained: 15 San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing ...

St. James By the Sea Episcopal Church

Membership: 1200 individuals. Pastor: Randal Gardner (Rector) Age: 57 Born: Denver, Colorado Formation: Seattle Pacific University; Church Divinity School of the Pacific-Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Years Ordained: 25 San Diego Reader: How long do you ...

Two Jeffs

“I used to work here,” says Jeff. Funny, because we’re talking and chowing in Jeff’s Burgers. But, turns out, it was named after a different Jeff. We each take a chomp into our crunchy charbroiled ...

Like Raw Meat

Crowds came out to enjoy the surf and sunshine at La Jolla Shores on July 14. But by the end of the day, over 38 beachgoers had felt the barbs of stingrays that were clustered ...

Torrey Pines Christian Church

Membership: 600 individuals Pastor: Michael Spitters Age: 48 Born: St. Joseph, Michigan Formation: Hope College, Holland, MI.; Texas Christian University-Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, TX.; Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL.; missionary work in Taiwan Years ...