Spring Valley Stories
Buckle Up Slide into the passenger seat and buckle up: we’re about to take a driving tour down a decidedly rocky road. Yes, California’s second-largest city will always take a ...
In the Middle East of San Diego County, there lies a kind of marijuana Mecca, a place to which pot pilgrims may peregrinate on a high hajj in their quest ...
Zad Mediterranean Cuisine sits several hundred feet down a peculiar, obsolete offshoot of Campo Road that dead ends beneath highway 94. Technically, Zad is visible from the eastbound lanes, but ...
It was the heart-shaped pizza that brought me to Paradise Valley, a southeastern San Diego neighborhood roughly at the halfway point between National City and Spring Valley. Aside from single-family ...
Spring Valley Stories
Facing the watchful eye of environmental groups, county planners last week presented several options to guide development in San Diego's backcountry. Since more than 99 percent of the unincorporated area depends on cars, development is ...
Academy Award-nominated Andra Day began singing at Chula Vista’s First United Methodist Church, then studied music at the School of Creative and Performing Arts. Her 2012 cover of Jessie J’s “Mamma Knows Best” peaked at ...
It feels good to be a winner. Who doesn’t love being the best — or at least the first, or the luckiest? People congratulate you, make you feel special and singled out. And you get ...
A long-awaited environmental impact report for a sand mine along the Sweetwater River in El Cajon is up for public review. While developers say a local supply of sand will benefit the environment, opponents are ...
On October 30, Ron Villarin drove his dual-motor Tesla Model 3 from his Paradise Hills home to the Las Vegas Convention Center for less than $30 worth of Tesla Supercharger-electric juice. "That's three stops," he ...
When our server places it on the table, it’s so large that we assume the kitchen has sent out the two-person order by mistake. But no, this large bowl contains the single order of the ...
There’s an aisle of shelves in Spring Valley grocery Valley Farm Market almost entirely devoted to barbecue. It carries sauces, seasonings, wood chips, pellets, and a litany of accessories for the wannabe backyard smoker. I’ve ...
“You’re going to Spring Valley?” she told me, “You know, the best kept secret in San Diego is a Spring Valley meat counter. It makes the best carne asada….” A couple nights later, a wide ...
The Beat Farmers’ debut album Tales of the New West was recorded in the summer of 1984 with a bare-bones budget of $4500 — the majority of which was spent on a single-day marathon session ...
If your pandemic bingo card has restaurants re-opening in response to a judge declaring strip clubs can not be shut down by the state’s stay at home order, well congratulations! — you might win 2020. ...
‘When God’s not in heaven, He’s in Jamul,” says Dr. Don. “I know it. I feel it.” This is my 84-year-old bar neighbor, out here on the Campo Road. Just met him. I’ve happened in ...
Back in the days of Prohibition, party boats would sit off the coast of San Diego and other California cities, just outside U.S. jurisdiction, where revelers could booze, gamble, and otherwise indulge. “They had free ...
Coffee and bourbon fans take note: a new flavored whiskey brand hit the shelves in San Diego in August. First Light Coffee Whiskey debuted in local shops with two bottled flavors of coffee whiskey: original ...
At about 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 22, Vincenzo Cartiera hurried out of his Spring Valley home. He was running late to work. “Is that my car — where are the wheels?” he asked himself that ...
Gas prices in San Diego County were supposed to go up on 5.6 cents a gallon on July 1, due to a new gas tax. Some stations didn’t get the memo. As of midday July ...
Nearly 31 years ago, Jamie Peters walked into his mother’s home in La Mesa and dropped off his house keys. It was a brief nighttime visit. He paused long enough to look around the familiar ...
Never let it be said this county is short of corners to explore. I certainly found myself driving along new roads seeking out Bankhead Mississippi Style Cooking, out in a southern corner of Spring Valley, ...
Daryl Mayol Vaughn made 238 emergency calls to 911 in the year 2018, according to testimony from deputy Max Blumenshine in court yesterday, January 3, 2019. In those not-really-emergency calls, Vaughn typically claimed there was ...
It’s tough to think of a peeted single malt whiskey as moonshine, especially from a recipe as old as any laws in this country. But for decades, that’s technically what Mike Curphy had been making. ...
On August 23, I visited the Kmart at 935 Sweetwater Road in Spring Valley by the 54 Freeway. A lady with a blue shirt that read “Attention Kmart Shoppers” on the front was helping me. ...
Back in September 2017, San Diego Distillery was poised to grow out of its small warehouse space in Spring Valley. The craft spirit maker’s “beer whiskey” approach — distilling craft beer into barrel-aged grain liquors ...
The road to Sharon’s Worm World is in turn blacktop, gravel, then finally Ramona dirt. Sharon McLaughlan, the worm farm’s founder and namesake, is waiting at the crest of the dusty lane that ends at ...
“The only rule of the [food] swap is that there is no exchange of money,” said Marianne West. On Saturday (May 27), she met with about forty other San Diegans at the Spring Valley East ...
It happens. Rob Logic, owner of the Bancroft in Spring Valley, can rattle off a list, starting with the time in 1964 when James Nelson Spencer smashed his Pontiac Bonneville through the front door of ...
“As of now, all the songs we were ready to record had to be rewritten musically,” says frontwoman Syren Franco, whose Jamul-based Blackwater Prophecy was recording their second album earlier this year, a symphonic rock ...
The three punk Mice have been playing for 21 years. “We actually started two years before as Billy Club,” explains singer/bassist Travis Poe. “Our lead singer Matt went away to rehab and never came back. ...
While the local booking company Gigtown remains controversial, one San Diego band and a hardcore critic are glad they’re here. Launched last year by Andy Altman with a reported $3 million investment by his father, ...
Earlier this year, a Reader cover story highlighted changes to California law allowing small batch distilleries to sell bottles out of their tasting rooms. Only a few months later, this change is helping Spring Valley ...
Spring Valley doesn't boast any craft breweries, but it's playing a pivotal role in San Diego's burgeoning craft-distillery movement. Kill Devil Spirits Co. started out there back in 2011, Liberty Call Distilling Co. in 2014, ...
“All these people said they would use our music on their comps. The problem is, those comps never came out.” That’s why longtime punker Ugly Lenny of Inciting Riots became Ugly Lenny record producer when ...
Saint Patrick's Day has come and gone, but for at least one San Diego County man, "the wearing of the green" isn't something you do for one day a year. It's a way of life. ...
La Mesa resident Tiffany heard the distinctive sounds of cat courtship in January and knew she would again face the issue of feral cats near her home. "We've been struggling [with it] since we moved ...
Andrew Somo, the owner of A-1 Hookah Bar in Spring Valley, is trading in his liquor license for a beer license because he wants a nicer clientele. But to do that, he has had to ...
A fugitive in violation of his parole terms is back in custody after adding robbery and attempted-murder charges to his rap sheet over the weekend. On Saturday afternoon, April 12, 24-year-old Harold Hill entered the ...
The residents deserve to live as well as anyone else, not better.
What’s a Kamenitza beer, from far-off Bulgaria, doing in Cali Comfort? Long story short, the owner is Bulgarian. The place has been in his family for some time. Used to be a breakfast place, but ...
Amid playing with Mexicali hardcore outfit Los Nuevos Maevans (actually just some dudes Milli Vanilli-ing a pre-recorded ’80s punk play-list — seriously), Guillermo Estrada went on a spirit quest and re-invented himself as flute-tooting techno-shaman ...
Part of the Valley Farm BBQ Stand’s charm is its utter lack of ambiance. The place is nothing but a shack in a grocery store parking lot, with a few patio tables for “seating.” Hulking ...
If you have lived in Spring Valley for any period of time, then you have probably bought a Christmas tree from Tim Gross. Since 1981, he has transported thousands of Christmas trees from his 200-acre ...
The estate of English author J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of The Lord of the Rings fantasy trilogy, today announced a $4.4 billion dollar lawsuit against the Spring Valley company Treebeard Landscape, citing copyright infringement. "Treebeard" says ...
An 18-year-old Spring Valley resident was arrested on Monday, September 23, after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers discovered what they suspected was heroin in the trunk of her car as she entered the United ...
A scuffle ensued when police officers in La Mesa responded to a call about a fight outside an apartment on the 5600 block of Jackson Drive over the weekend, leaving both the suspect and an ...
Authorities have released a photo and are looking for assistance from the public in identifying a man who robbed a Subway restaurant on the 600 block of Sweetwater Road in Spring Valley last week. On ...
The Bancroft opened at the site of the defunct dive Fannie’s, and the Spring Valley spot is now a punk and hardcore haven.
Looking at it now, you may have to squint a little to envision the Spring Valley home that Bulgarian-farm-boy-cum-doctor Luben Walchef bought in 1972 and converted into a family restaurant about ten years later. The ...
A 31-year-old construction worker in Spring Valley fell into a 5-by-15-foot trench and was subsequently pinned by a 1400-pound concrete form on the morning of January 4. After being rescued by CalFire personnel, the worker ...
An East County woman who may have tried to fake her own death was sentenced September 14 to 18 months in federal prison for her role in smuggling undocumented immigrants through Jacumba Hot Springs. Rebecca ...