Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Back to profile

Stories by Bruce Kauffman

Just another night in Gaslamp

Last Thursday (3/22/18), a few days after St. Patrick's Day, a worker at a cigar bar on Fifth Avenue confirmed a report that an incoherent reveler had wobbled in waving an open bottle of champagne. …

March 30, 2018
Imperial Beach closings sink beach attendance

Imperial Beach by the numbers: Beach closings 2016: 30 Beach closings 2017: 70 Beach attendance 2016: 3.1 million Beach attendance 2017: 2.3 million The number of beach closings in Imperial Beach more than doubled in …

Wrecked it Ralph Inzunza

Former city councilman Ralph Inzunza's debut novel, The Camp, a semi-autobiographical account of his 21-month stretch in a federal prison camp for his efforts as a city councilor to change the law so patrons could …

Hard-caught MTS bus out of East Village

A host of new changes took effect on the bus lines of the Metropolitan Transit System on January 28th. Several routes were eliminated, with MTS noting in a monthly bulletin that you could still get …

February 6, 2018
Reefer mathematics in San Ysidro

Marco hovered in front of the display cases at a San Ysidro dispensary on January 24th waiting for those in line ahead of him to make their selections. He said he'd had a doctor's recommendation …

January 27, 2018
Chula Vista's Victory Christian Church sold

For more than a year, congregants of the Victory Christian Church and Academy in Chula Vista have endured a cloud overhead because the possibility loomed that they might have to sell some three acres at …

November 30, 2017
Bernie Sanders pays National City campaign bill

More than a year after Bernie Sanders led a high-spirited rally in a public park in National City during his run for the presidency, he's finally paid his bill of more than $28,000 in municipal …

Solution for 12th & Imperial clock problem

When folks heading for the 12th & Imperial Transit Center would look up at the southeasterly face of the four-sided clock tower, the face visible from 13th Street and National Avenue, it would read 8:45. …

National City students least fit out of 42 school systems in San Diego County

The schoolchildren of more affluent parents not only do the best on standardized academic tests, they also do better on measures of physical fitness, a recent report on obese children in San Diego County suggests. …

Time standing still in the East Village

What time is it anyway? For commuters whose travels include a stop or a transfer at 12th Street and Imperial Avenue, time either stood still or twelve hours went by awfully fast. The clock tower …

September 22, 2016
San Ysidro School District teachers ripped off?

In 2014, the board of the San Ysidro School District told the teachers it was nearly broke and asked them to swallow a pay cut of 8 percent. The teachers went on strike, then settled …

Teen's October 11 murder remains unsolved

On Sunday, May 29, at least 50 friends and family members of 18-year-old Juan Carlos Muñoz Jr. gathered at Highland Avenue and 30th Street in National City to press for justice for the teen, who …

Math is done on Pier South hotel

In January, 2013, the Pier South Resort hotel opened on the sand in Imperial Beach after more than a decade of delays. The project got a $7 million push from the city, enough to cover …

February 25, 2016
Hey, not everyone is good with numbers

It’s open season for a seat on the San Ysidro School District board for the post recently vacated by Jose Barajas, a trustee who decided to resign instead of face a recall election. The governing …

August 31, 2015
In raunchy-funky's absence...

Fifteen years ago, officials in Imperial Beach proposed transforming the raunchy, funky Seacoast Inn — its redeeming feature being the location on the sand — into a resort and luring upscale tourists to the most …

Padres bean brawl with Atlanta in 1984

In 1984, the feisty San Diego Padres made it all the way to the World Series, with a bump or two in Atlanta en route. Deep into the pennant-winning '84 season, on August 12 at …

March 30, 2014
Community garden springs up in Chula Vista

Scrawny saplings are in the ground in rows — apple, peach, avocado, tangerine — and a gardener says you may be able to pick fruit from these trees two years from now. Landscaping tools are …

Pit bull attack inspires petition for Imperial Beach ban

A lifelong lover of dogs who says she lives in fear of them now is asking the Imperial Beach City Council to ban pit bulls along the shoreline. Caesarina Kelley planned to present a petition …

Not so pretty: Bonita’s sign replacement cost

Though Bonita's welcome mat has been pulled, the South Bay community is hardly discouraging people from coming by. The “Welcome to Bonita” sign, designed to convey a warm hello to those entering the community's portal, …

December 29, 2013
South Bay skaters hit the slope

In high school, Joshua Aguirre would gaze across the 805 freeway from Hilltop High’s campus at a steep incline that curved wide at the top, had a sharp turn near the bottom, and ended in …

November 16, 2013
Pier improvements in Imperial Beach

Strollers at the Imperial Beach Pier were recently greeted by a sign at the entrance proclaiming that improvements — mainly refurbishing and replacing worn, warped, wooden planks — are being carried out “at no cost …

North County Times online archives awash in the ether

Though the stated aim of the U-T San Diego has been to "merge'" with the North County Times, and loyal Times readers can still get their hands on ersatz NCT editions with a masthead that …

April 2, 2013
North County train construction causing dirty water runoff

In August 2003, the North County Transit District, preparing to build a train line linking Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, and Escondido, applied to state authorities for a storm water discharge permit. The train, called the …

Creative Chaos at MiraCosta

MiraCosta College dean Eileen Kraskouskas was in San Francisco for a three-day conference last March when she got e-mails and calls from the office of the MiraCosta president telling her that 2006 would be her …

Day Labor And the Law

Around 8:00 in the morning on August 22, Susan and Sheng Wei drove their white SUV to Escondido and South Santa Fe avenues in Vista, looking to hire help for the heavy lifting required to …

December 21, 2006
The Heart Meets the Law

Jose Esteban held a rolled-up poster under one arm and his two-year-old daughter with the other as he walked toward Washington Avenue from the west side of the Escondido City Hall. Inside, that Wednesday evening, …

October 19, 2006
Maverick in a Military Town

Agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service say that last April 26, seven Marines based at Camp Pendleton joined with a Navy medic to enter the rural town of Hamdaniya, west of Baghdad, and without …

September 14, 2006
Touch One, Touch All

When Michael Moore finally arrived at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on October 12 to rail against a second term for President Bush, he promised to devote the ticket proceeds to scholarships for the biggest hell-raisers …

August 4, 2005

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader