Cosplay at Comic-Con
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Jamie Gardner 5 p.m., July 20
Linda Vista Stories
Watchtower done looking the other way?
Final lawsuit over sex abuse by Jehovah's Witness elder settled
The lawsuits over sexual molestation by Jehovah's Witness elders in San Diego are officially over. On February 18, former parishioner Osbaldo Padron, one of several children molested by former church elder Gonzalo Campos, agreed to ...
Sandag causes my property to flood
Not our fault, says association of local governments
Trolley-line travesty — adjacent property owners keep an eye on Sandag.
Jehovah's Witnesses to settle sex-abuse case
Victim filed lawsuit six (6) years ago
A lawsuit is now settled between a former victim of sexual abuse and Jehovah's Witnesses. According to the court's website, the case is under a "conditional settlement." The terms and conditions of the settlement are ...
Rent-control guy for city council
Rafael Bautista's good-works momentum could unseat Myrtle Cole
On January 8th, rent-control advocate Rafael Bautista filed paperwork with the city to run for the District 4 council seat now occupied by Myrtle Cole. As covered by the Reader, Bautista is a real estate ...
Linda Vista skate park open to law-breakers only
"What did they think was going to happen? Kids are going to want to skate it."
The Linda Vista skate park was supposed to open in August. Then in September...November...January… By all appearances, the facility looks open. Skaters are spotted there all the time — though, kids sneaked into the park ...
City okays USD plans to build on three sides of widow’s home
USD to neighbor: Sell us your house or we’ll build a six-story parking garage next door
The Spanish villa that Virginia LaGuardia and her husband built in the 1970s may soon be nestled against a massive parking garage, student housing, and an administrative building that the University of San Diego intends ...
Protest at alleged slumlord's house in Point Loma
And a "Walk of shame" tour of short-term rentals in O.B.
Thanksgiving weekend found plenty of San Diegans less than thankful for housing conditions in their communities. Saturday (November 25th) saw Ocean Beach play host to a short-term vacation rental "walk of shame" sponsored by the ...
Jehovah's Witnesses' withheld info will cost them
Appellate court lets stand prior ruling that penalizes at rate of $4000 daily
The clock is ticking for Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters to turn over documents detailing sexual abuse of children by kingdom elders. For each day they do not, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah’s Witnesses’ organizational ...
Can sushi go populist?
Make-your-own spot gives new respect for the chef
Should sushi have populist appeal? It's a question worth asking. On the one hand, a talented sushi chef can turn a meal into an transcendent eating experience. On the other, why should the enjoyment of ...
Cops called over tenants' uprising
Linda Vista renters proceed with plan to stop paying
Tenants at a large Linda Vista apartment complex who last month threatened a rent strike are following through on their intentions. What that will eventually mean is still unclear. According to Rafael Bautista of San ...
Capital of Craft IPA, aka San Diego Super Ale
Brewers guild members hammer out commemorative recipe
The San Diego Brewers Guild turns 20 this year and has organized a massive collaboration beer to commemorate the milestone. Dubbed the Capital of Craft IPA, the beer was brewed with input from many of ...
Jehovah's Witnesses look in other direction
Lawyers for religious group argue against daily fines in sex-abuse case
Attorneys for the Jehovah's Witness church appeared before a state appellate court yesterday (October 11) in hopes of overturning the $4000 daily sanctions that a trial court ordered them to pay for refusing to turn ...
Aromatic dishes and a heart for Puerto Rico
When I walked into Andrés Restaurant for the first time, the smells wafting out of the kitchen were so good, I almost didn't ask for a menu. Just give me whatever's cooking, I wanted to ...
Linda Vista renters threaten strike
Tenants demand habitability improvements, protest 15 percent hike
As many as 50 tenants at the Village Apartments complex in Linda Vista are threatening a "rent strike" beginning next week if their demands for more modest rent increases and completion of repairs affecting the ...
Home Brew Mart turns 25
Shop has supplied countless local craft-beer startups
Call it the homebrew shop that launched a thousand brewing careers. Linda Vista's Home Brew Mart, best known as the birthplace of Ballast Point Brewing Company, turns 25 this week. While the story of the ...
Never opened a Bible till my 40s
Drunk driver changes Lutheran minister's life
Membership: 25 Pastor: Rigoberto Gonzalez Age: 55 Born: Sonora, Mexico Formation: Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO Years Ordained: 6 San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing your sermon? Pastor Rigoberto Gonzalez: I’d say ...
You want rent control in San Diego? Sign here.
Meeting draws only three, but hopes for movement are high
“I’m paying $950 [for rent per month] there, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed [that it doesn’t go up],” said Cat Mendoza on August 26. She lives off of 44th Street in City Heights, just ...
Linda Vista skaters snort at park completion date
First scheduled to open in August, then September, now November
San Diego's largest skate park is 90 percent complete, says the city. Many hoped it would open in August and then September. Last week, a worker at the skate park, located at the intersection of ...
7-Eleven pushes for more liquor licenses — City Heights, Ocean Beach, Linda Vista
Already owns more than 20 percent of beer and wines permits in San Diego County
In the past year, the 7-Eleven corporation — which now holds more than 20 percent of the beer and wine sales licenses in the county — has launched a push into at least five San ...
If Linda Vista said no, maybe Mission Valley will also
7-Eleven, facing foes to Friars Road site, misses meeting
Representatives from 7-Eleven were a no-show at a Mission Valley Planning Group meeting Wednesday (May 3) — for a presentation they had asked to make on a proposed store at Via Las Cumbres and Friars ...
Bay Parkers praise Highway 101 signs on Morena Blvd.
But one old-timer says 101 was where I-5 is now.
The last stop for Dave Potter, before ordering historic Highway 101 signage to put up along Morena Boulevard, was to get one last final thumbs-up from the Clairemont community planning group on April 18. Potter, ...
Metal is alive and well at Brick by Brick
San Diego is secretly angsty.
Bar ownership Rule No. 1: You snooze, you lose. “We learned it's not real easy,” says Shannon Sgrosso, part of the rock-star contingent that swooped in to save the struggling Brick by Brick three years ...
Butt out, Clairemont, says Linda Vista
Affordable housing and cyclist groups don’t like neighborhood planning groups
Linda Vista should have a neighborhood voice in planning how the neighborhood is developed and maintained, the neighborhood's planning group voted unanimously Monday night. "I have a lot of respect for the Clairemont planning group ...
Clutch Bar’s Bar Monster requests you stay off your phone
“You can drink alone at home. We’re here to talk.”
Were it not for the name and the salvaged “CUSTOM SERVICE” sign overlooking the pool table, you might not guess that the Clutch was once an auto shop before becoming a neighborhood bar in the ...
Residential puts squeeze on Linda Vista retail/industrial
Rezoning process to delay 90-foot towers and 1700 high-density homes
“The neighborhood isn’t crazy about this,” said Howard Wayne about the city’s suggestion to build up to 90 feet high on West Morena Boulevard. Wayne heads the Morena Corridor Specific Plan subcommittee for the Linda ...
Fake Twitter account prompts lawsuit
USD student sues for Trump-related defamation
A University of San Diego law student says a fellow student defamed her on Twitter for her unwavering support of then-candidate Donald Trump. The woman, Tiffany Dehen, is suing the student (who has not been ...
Can't you smell that smell in Ocean Beach?
And downtown, Loma Portal, Mira Mesa, Linda Vista, Chula Vista...
Residents in Ocean Beach and Loma Portal woke up this morning (December 22) to a mysterious odor hanging in the damp air. Over the course of an hour, dozens of people reported the smell via ...
Last chance for neighbors of Francis Parker School
Residents hope for successful appeal to halt expansion
Community members in Linda Vista hope to overturn a San Diego Planning Commission approval of a massive expansion of one of San Diego's most elite private schools, the Francis Parker School in Linda Vista. As ...
How much more black could it be?
Dark Pugliese wines
Down in the sunblasted “heel” of Italy, grapes with thick, black skins flourish in the baking sunlight. The wines produced from such crops are quintessentially Italian in their boldness and, if I might go out ...
Francis Parker School expansion approved
"I am not sympathetic to residents that live near high schools."
San Diego's planning commission approved a proposed expansion of Francis Parker School in Linda Vista today (July 28). The private high school expansion calls for a net increase of approximately 62,000 square feet of new ...
Linda Vista is San Diego's cucuy room
People here just do and just are
Comedian George Lopez jokes that every Mexican family has a haunted room somewhere on the premises — “the cucuy room.” It’s the one you sprint past on your way to the commode in the middle ...
McDonald's at Rady Children's packs up the fryer
Ronald McDonald House still held in high regard
Parents and kids visiting Rady Children’s Hospital may be surprised at a big change in the hospital’s lobby: the McDonald's restaurant inside, which had opened in 1996 next to the emergency room, has closed. “It's ...
Unreasonable eviction in Linda Vista
Tenants say they're being forced out after complaining to media
About 50 tenants from several apartment complexes marched throughout Linda Vista on Monday evening (June 20), demanding better living conditions and a halt to what they're calling retaliatory evictions against tenants who've spoken up about ...
A moral question about Francis Parker school’s expansion goes unanswered
Francis Parker vs. neighbors...again
Lights, traffic among residents’ objections to the school’s plans
Apartment tenant action in Linda Vista
"...cockroach and rodent infestations, leaky roofs and windows, broken windows..."
Dozens of protesters rallied in front of a Linda Vista apartment complex Wednesday afternoon (April 27), demanding property managers immediately begin dealing with a backlog of habitability complaints ranging from deferred maintenance to rodent infestation ...
The duck soup kicks
J&T Thai Street Food becomes a third option
Before I left on my Euro Odyssey 2015, I would have divided (if pressed to do so candidly) the local Thai food scene into two camps: Sab-E-Lee and Everything Else. I know. Haters gonna hate. ...
Mesa College observatory dedicated to Trailmaster Schad
Jerry was like a comet
Colleagues and friends of Jerry Schad, astronomer, teacher, and author of San Diego's best hiking guide, assembled at Mesa College Thursday (November 18) to dedicate the Jerry Schad Observatory atop the Mathematics and Natural Sciences ...
A deli counter good enough for a wedding party
Waters Fine Foods puts supermarkets to shame
While in a grocery store recently, I came across a couple of guys who were ordering vast quantities of salads and meats from the deli counter. They said they were hosting a casual wedding reception ...
Who's minding Department of Animal Services?
Lawsuit lends insight into X-ray safety protocol and lack of permits
A former veterinarian is accusing San Diego County's Department of Animal Services of retaliating against her and her colleagues after discovering that several X-ray machines were not inspected and two shelters lacked permits to operate. ...
Sidecar doesn't ride shotgun
Linda Vista bar has dialed in the obscure location in a way that none of its predecessors had
Blame the humidity, but my first instinct upon entering Sidecar was to draw a cynical correlation between the place’s name and the thought that they were more or less riding shotgun to the passing fancies ...
The new Original Sab-E-Lee
Popular Thai food spot makes a move in Linda Vista
The Linda Vista Original Sab-E-Lee changed location this year. Thai food fans know the small and authentic northeastern Thai spot as one of the best such restaurants in town and would anticipate a big move ...
Here's what we got for $40.5 million
Mesa College dedicates spiffy new building — "our school’s new center"
San Diego Mesa College faculty members and students cut the ribbon on its $40.5 million Social and Behavioral Sciences Building on February 11 — the latest in a years-long overhaul of the campus located where ...
After the rampage
Suspect sues for untreated injuries from gunshot wounds
Joseph Anthony Hill, accused of murdering a man and running over a police officer, is suing San Diego County sheriff William Gore and the University of California at San Diego Medical Center for not adequately ...
Plate of pork, context, and nostalgia
Kona Kakes becomes part of the journey to become a pro eater of pigs in polystyrene blankets
It's kind of funny how nostalgia works. Take plate lunches, for example. The Hawaiian lunch staple usually involves some sort of cheap protein, a scoop of rice, and macaroni salad. There's nothing particularly alluring or ...
Venue News: Belly Up loses a talentbuyer; the Griffin offers its 48 license
There are a couple of significant changes afoot on the local music-venue front, as Belly Up in Solana Beach is about to announce a new talent buyer and the Griffin in Bay Park is up ...
Deja Voodoo is just pure shredding
Interview with Taz Taylor, whose 2014 album Deja Voodoo won’t include any vocals — just pure shredding, metal heads! Deedle-eedle-eedle-eedle-leedle-dee-dee!
Brick runs dry
Brick by Brick’s liquor license is suspended for a year…and though management seems confident they’ll get it back, they’re cautious about talking about it.
Ballast Point building new brewery
The latest and largest link in BP’s rapidly expanding chain
I told of its coming many moons ago. I’ve known of the location for over a month, but kept it under my hat. Now, Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits is ready to disclose the location ...
Early Look: Ballast Point in Little Italy
Bursting-at-the-seams company’s new brewery-restaurant
For the better part of its existence, Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits epitomized slow craft brewing company growth. Owner Jack White and long-time head brewer Yuseff Cherney seemed content to let Karl Strauss and Stone ...
We must be talking bánh mi
Mom's dream
At Linda Vista’s Bale Restaurant & Deli (serving Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai Cuisine), Ed attacks an egg loaf and other morsels.
Eight-graders find their voices in photo program
Trained to use 35-millimeter cameras
In multilingual Linda Vista, schoolchildren are learning to write in English. It’s not always easy. Fifteen-year-old Jacqueline Garza admitted that only a few months ago she was failing her eighth-grade English class. But on the ...
Car drives onto trolley tracks in Linda Vista
Tow-truck #2 pulls it off the rails
Eastbound San Diego Trolley traffic came to a standstill at the Linda Vista/Morena station from 7:15 to 7:45 p.m. on June 14, as did all traffic at the Friars Road/Morena Boulevard intersection. A car had ...
