Escondido Stories
San Marcos City Manager Jack Griffin begins his annual June letter to the mayor and city council, “It is kind of my pleasure to submit the Fiscal Year 2020-2021 Operations ...
On the morning of April 23, Jasmine King and her family's flatbed trailer was stolen from the front of their Escondido home. "People are getting desperate," she said to me ...
We’ve seen a number of restaurants successfully pivot in the covid era, whether they’ve transformed into on-site groceries or added family combo meals to the menu. Escondido’s premier fine dining ...
San Diegans willing to venture out from home quarantine are noticing some positives. Freeways are wide open, and the price of gas is dropping like a rock. In the traditional ...
Escondido Stories
On a scrubby sweep of land in Otay Ranch, home to the tiny Quino checkerspot butterfly, developers want to build a village. The small colony of endangered butterflies is among the last in the county ...
After many delays, the final environmental impact report for Harvest Hills, a hard-fought, high-end housing proposal in rural Escondido, is expected as early as this month. In November, 23 environmental, climate and community groups sent ...
Halloween is “Valentino Frankenstein’s” favorite holiday. The north Escondido resident plays guitar for local Duran Duran and The Cars tribute bands and his monster-moniker is his stage name, partially because he stands 6 feet 4 ...
Where are the high paying jobs cropping up in San Diego? North County. And where are many of the big sprawl housing projects proposed? North County. The "two simple numbers" that really count in that ...
Has an organized Democrat group become too petty for its own good? I was given a heads-up that the September 29 DEMCCO meeting (Democratic Club of Carlsbad Oceanside, self-billed as North County’s largest Dem group) ...
Scott Michael Perry, 30, is a frequent flyer in San Diego County’s court system, he has at least 25 case files. His public record began in the year 2008, when he was 19 years old. ...
It seems President Trump was correct in his assumption that the Saudi Arabia oil field bombing would not send the world’s gas prices into a tizzy. The U.S. is now the world’s largest exporter of ...
"The guy in that screen shot looks like one of the 'wet bandits' in the other video,” Mary said to me on a September 20 interview. “Multiple people believe it’s the same guy and they ...
Around midnight, September 4, Joe Avila was alerted via his phone of a mountain lion lurking within their Valley Center property. “We added the Arlo Pro cameras in the orchard to see what was eating ...
North Park and North Escondido dwellers have recently reported of “more” spiders crawling around their homes. Natelle Bracken lives in North Park closer to the 805 freeway. In 2019, she has seen seven black and ...
On August 6, RE/MAX realtor Carmen Cifuentes posted Facebook photos of trash and debris she just discovered. “It was a huge dump on a property that we are selling,” she told me on August 16. ...
There was at least one time when struggling addict Mario Duron says the system screwed him. “I had been through drug court. I had been sober for eight months. My probation officer visited my house ...
Macaroni. I’m not talkin about the feather stuck in Yankee Doodle’s cap, but the cheesy pasta dish. The one that’s somehow both originally Italian and OG American. The one that, when I see it on ...
Javier said he was on the phone with 911 while he walked toward the fight, and he told the attacker to “Let go” of the man on the ground, but when the attacker turned away ...
On April 20, Jonathan W. from Clairemont saw a Facebook photo of a teenager climbing out of the sunroof of a Mercedes-Benz W210 in Escondido, while the vehicle “was going fast up a hill.” “They’ll ...
One of the hallmarks of 21st century foodie-ism in America has been the reinvention of specialty food shops. In addition to the advent of businesses dedicated to perfecting the likes of cupcakes, pickles, and hot ...
Orange tree owners from Valley Center and Escondido took to social media to vent about their fruit splitting. “What caused the spitting this year?” questioned one woman from Escondido on February 11. “My other citrus ...
Since Escondido is one of the lowest areas in the county for gas prices, some motorists may be wondering what’s up with the OAAI station on the corner of Centre City Parkway at 9th Avenue. ...
Escondido police officer Steve Higgins said he was called to Orange Glen High School the early afternoon of Tuesday, December 18. The officer said he spoke to one teacher, a man in his mid-50s, who ...
A defense attorney claimed that Juan Dolorier did try to register as a sex offender, but there was confusion about what to do and when to do it. Public defender Dan Segura spoke on behalf ...
A witness identified as Arturo said he was the loss prevention officer for the Target store on Auto Park Way in Escondido, on September 16. Arturo said it was before noon that day that he ...
The felon out on probation had his knife lawfully displayed in a sheath on his belt, according to his defense attorney, and so he did not violate California law. And when that felon tossed his ...
Dixon Lake, a small, deep reservoir in Escondido, was made famous as the home of an enormous bass. The trout can be quite large, too, and are caught en masse after the lake has been ...
"They haven’t removed the stitches, I still have the stitches in there.” Victor touched his ear when he spoke about that weird day when his ear got slashed. It happened on March 31, when he ...
An Escondido man created a bizarre birthday bonfire for himself the day he turned 31, overnight between September 12 and 13, according to a police officer who testified in court months later. Officer Adam St. ...
I don’t suppose many readers have occasion to go out in Escondido’s eastern sprawl for carne asada. I doubt most of us need to travel a mile to find a choice of spots serving it. ...
A little sanctuary surrounded by buffalo wings and Guinness beer
An Escondido woman claimed that an argument about sharing costs of an apartment ended with her getting dropped on her head. The alleged fracas occurred three weeks ago, on August 13. Rochelle testified in a ...
According to a new report, San Diego is among the five California counties that have the most homes in high fire risk zones. The county has 254,400 housing units in brushy, steep, and hard to ...
The 18-year-old woman said she didn’t know her 21-year-old friend was going to rob that person until he did it. And then she drove away at speed, from police, because she was afraid. Victoria Josephine ...
A man who lived in a ten-foot-deep burrow in an Escondido park threatened city workers after his furniture and things were thrown away, according to testimony in court today, August 13, 2018. Mark Edward Powell, ...
“Mister Alvarez is a man who is hopelessly addicted to methamphetamine,” his defense attorney told a judge during a twenty minute hearing on Monday, July 16, 2018. Defender Lacey Golling asserted that the drugs Alvarez ...
James Matthew Davis, 43, denied causing more than a thousand dollars damage to a park ranger’s truck when he kicked it three months ago, on March 5. Davis is accused of becoming enraged after park ...
Call San Diego the land of beer and honey, because the guys behind a local mead startup have won a nationally televised beer contest. Andrew Segina, John Botica, and Mark Oberle co-founded Meadiocrity Meadery in ...
The inconsistencies started piling up. Knowing I would wind up in Escondido at the end of a long workday, I poked around online to find some convenient place to grab a snack before tackling the ...
“I was gonna take Lyft and I wanted to check my balance. I had a negative fourteen cents. She took my very last dollar.” A woman identified as “Sharon” testified this morning that her former ...
A mis-trial was declared this morning in the case against Eric Wilkes Durland, 27, who was accused of seriously injuring a woman when he crashed into her car while evading police, four months ago. Defense ...
When Charlie Jancic thinks about wildfire in the San Pasqual Valley, it’s from real life. In 2007, the Witch Fire and Guejito Fire took his house. “The roads aren’t great — they’re mostly two lanes, ...
“This is not a whodunnit,” the defense attorney told the jury yesterday, May 10. “This was in fact a killing that was done by David McGee.” David Noel McGee Jr., 26, is facing one charge ...
It looks like I've missed many opportunities to visit Rock n' Jenny's Italian Subs. The East Coast style Italian deli has been dishing up sandwiches and pasta since 1989, and I've always driven right past ...
In 2004 Escondido passed an ordinance to charge an annual fee to register burglar alarms. When the program rolled out, affecting both homes and businesses, alarm owners were confused and frustrated by questions about their ...
Something for everyone in Escondido (especially on weekends and holidays).
“Welcome to Rancho Escondido Groves, your very own private 290.95-acre luxury mountain top estate.” So begins the sales pitch for the property at 1830 Rincon Avenue, in equal parts a development opportunity and potential paradise ...
The battle between San Diego independent breweries and Big Beer continues, and this time the fight is going to federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Escondido-based Stone Brewing, long one of the most ...
Look near the top of any Thai restaurant menu in America, and you're sure to find one Thai dish in particular: Pad Thai. However, as chef Nattapon "Nat" Thitathan explained to me in a recent ...
Donald Paul Jones, an Escondido accountant, has been put on probation for three years and suspended from practice for 45 days. The California Board of Accountancy announced the decision December 28 of last year. Jones ...
Back in June, Copenhagen brewery Mikkeller introduced a new hire for its 12-foeder, wild-ale brewhouse, Baghaven: "This is Ehren Schmidt, our new Master Blender," the announcement read, "A man that knows his shit." Schmidt had ...
Frontman Dave Wakeling is the only original member of the two-tone British ska band that moved from England to Southern California over 25 years ago. He calls all the shots. “The rest of us are ...