A brewery has to go through a review process to get a permit to set up suds, but it doesn’t need to go through the same rigamarole to open a satellite “tasting room.” It looks like a loophole, and it quacks like a loophole, and several local brewers have poured themselves right through it.
Perhaps not anymore. As VOSD’s Andrew Keatts reports, the city wants to make sure neighbors can weigh in: “The city’s going through a regular update of its land development code, and wants to add a provision that these types of tasting rooms would need an additional permit before opening, even if they can technically get their liquor license right away.”
Politics Roundup: So They’re Not Your Pals?
• A local attorney is running for judge, so you might assume he’d say “yes” when he was called in for jury service and asked if he had friends or family members in law enforcement. In fact, he wrote “no” and “perhaps,” the U-T reports. Never mind that he has endorsements from a bunch of law enforcement groups. This is raising eyebrows.
• In Escondido, the largest labor union in San Diego is spending money attacking the Democrat in the mayor’s race.
• House Speaker John Boehner went to PB as expected to raise money Saturday for Carl DeMaio.
• Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who’s rapidly becoming the most high-profile and active local state legislator, is looking into changing the law to force homeowners associations — those arbiters of garage door paint jobs and mailbox placement — to allow homeowners to replace lawns with fake turf. She already successfully passed a law giving homeowners the right to put in drought-friendly plants if they lived in a previously strict HOA.
We Fixed Climate Change
On our podcast this week, we bring you a conversation with Geoffrey Chase, a dean at SDSU and expert on climate change. The hosting trio also broke down the latest rhetoric from the Chargers who seem to be saying they either have to block a team from moving to LA or they want to move to LA (or they’re just setting some negotiating stances).
ACLU on the Cop Camera Conundrum
There’s been a lot of media attention to the fact that the San Diego Police Department is keeping a tight lid on public access to video from those new “body cameras” for cops. USA Today looks at the debate over body cameras nationwide, and hears from an ACLU analyst who’s also concerned about the other side of the equation too: Privacy. “We want to ensure that video footage that’s not of public importance isn’t released to YouTube for laughs, and that video that is of public importance is available to the public to be scrutinized,” he said.
There’s No Place Like (Teeny) Home
• The U-T looks at the San Diego area’s smallest homes for sale, from an $84,700 500-square-foot cabin in Mount Laguna to an even teenier 480-square-feet home in Mission Beach with hardwood floors and large window. Er, windows. It’s just $599,000.
• A new report says downtown’s Harborview neighborhood (who knew we had a Harborview neighborhood?) has the 10th most expensive one-bedroom apartments in the entire country, at an average pretty-penny price of $2,206 a month. (USA Today)
Quick News Hits: Signs of the Times
• Our story about plans for a Hillcrest street makeover topped our list of the most popular articles on the VOSD site over the past week. Here’s the full Top 10 list.
• San Ysidro teachers are going to remain on strike. (Times of San Diego)
• A month in, the enforcement of new rules on camper and boat parking in the city is making a big difference on local streets, but things haven’t “been entirely smooth and they’ve created stress and confusion for many of the city’s roughly 100,000 recreational vehicle owners,” the U-T reports. “Critics also say the real test of the new ordinance will come next summer, the time of year when recreational vehicles from all over the country flock to San Diego’s beaches.”
• The zoo is building a $3 million “large cat” habitat for two types of endangered leopards. (LA Times)
• I hear “Tusk” and I think: classic Fleetwood Mac album. A dentist in the East Village hears “Tusk” and thinks: Where the heck is my $25,000 tusk from a prehistoric mammoth? It’s been stolen, possibly by “some sketchy guys peering through the windows all throughout that morning.” (NBC 7)
• The Chargers team bus got egged yesterday right before its game against the Raiders, apparently by opposing fans who didn’t mind wasting breakfast food.
By coincidence, I passed by the Oakland stadium at the end of the yesterday’s game on the way to the airport there. (Where, by the way, I flew home with a bunch of Chargers fans.) As a service to my fellow San Diegans, I glared at the stadium as it went by and silently mocked its dumb name (O.com Coliseum.)
That’ll show ’em. So will the 31-28 Chargers victory. Consider yourself double-shown, Raiders!
Randy Dotinga is a freelance contributor to Voice of San Diego and president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Please contact him directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.