The craft beer industry’s relationship to big beer has grown increasingly strained as large corporations continue to co-opt the craft look. Big corporations use craft-beer-like branding and marketing in an attempt to win back the sliver of the beer-drinking pie they’ve lost over the past few decades.
This week, San Diego’s Stone Brewing drew a line in the sand. Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch took to YouTube to announce a lawsuit against MillerCoors.
In the lawsuit, Stone alleges that the beer giant’s recent rebrand of its Keystone line of beer, a change that emphasizes the “stone” while obscuring “key,” constitutes trademark infringement.
VOSD contributor David Lizerbram, who’s practiced trademark law for 14 years, says Stone Brewing probably has a solid case.
“Stone doesn’t have to prove actual confusion — meaning, they don’t have to produce consumers who bought Keystone Lite on the mistaken believe that it was a Stone Brewing product,” Lizerbram writes. “Stone simply has to demonstrate likelihood of confusion.”
Introducing the Parent’s Guide to Public Schools
Download our free guide to San Diego public schools.
My oldest son is 5 years old. For months, I’ve been furiously touring schools, filling out application, navigating school district transfer requests and otherwise working my butt off to ensure he ends up at the best school possible.
But what is the best possible school for my kid anyway?
Voice of San Diego’s slick new school guide has been crucial in helping me navigate this process. It provides an overview of every public school’s performance in easy-to-read charts, and explains things like school choice and transitional kindergarten.
If you don’t have a copy of it yet, check your local library. Copies are also available through community partners like Neighborhood House, MAAC, Voices for Children and the Barrio Logan College Institute.
You can also download a digital copy in English or Spanish.
The County’s Climate Plan Lite
The climate is changing, and political leaders everywhere are scrambling to come up with plans and policies meant to curb the effects.
Locally, San Diego County is getting closer to adopting its climate action plan. But in a new commentary for VOSD, Jana Clark, a board member of the Cleveland National Forest Foundation, says the plan won’t do much to reduce the region’s contributions to climate change.
“The CAP that will go before the Board of Supervisors at its Wednesday’s meeting is rooted in fantasy,” Clark writes.
• If the wonky term “community choice aggregator” makes your eyes roll back into your head, rendering you unable to read the numerous stories VOSD and other local media outlets have done on the important topic, then watch this enjoyable and short video explainer. Produced by Ry Rivard and Adriana Heldiz, the video helps illuminate what a government-run energy program is, and how it relates to the city’s plan to curb the release of climate-changing emissions.
• The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to lobby against a federal proposal to open up the option of oil drilling along U.S. coastal waters. (City News Service)
Another Hornism
Every year or so, County Supervisor Bill Horn says something with true moxie. There was that time, in 2005, when he was pushing for one of the salary raises he and his colleagues have voted themselves, and he said “We’re not Franciscans.” Last year, they voted themselves another raise, further proving him correct.
We rounded up some of Horn’s best moments in 2014.
He’s out with a new one for his greatest hits: The Union-Tribune reports that the county Board of Supervisors decided that unlike recent years, it would not hold budget hearings in the evening, when it is easier for the public to attend. “I’m willing to sit here for two days. … I don’t want to sit here at night,” Horn said.
County Supervisor Greg Cox pushed to have at least one hearing in the evening but was ignored.
Arts Commissioners Gearing Up for Budget Battle
One of the main jobs of the people who volunteer to serve on the city’s Commission for Arts and Culture is to advise the mayor and the City Council on how to keep arts and culture alive in the city.
Welp, the commissioners are doing just that with a Feb. 2 memo to the mayor that makes a case for why this year’s arts budget shouldn’t get cut. Last year, the mayor initially proposed cutting the commission’s budget by a third.
I write about that, the new music director for the San Diego Symphony and much more in this week’s Culture Report.
Digging Into Homeless Student Data
The number of homeless students in San Diego County is increasing.
inewsource digs into new data that shows a 4.7 percent increase in homeless students in San Diego County over the previous year.
The story explains why pinning down the number of homeless students is so difficult and why getting an accurate number is so important.
Last year, VOSD’s Maya Srikrishnan did a series on the hidden homeless families of San Diego’s South Bay. In part, the series revealed how many families often come up with makeshift housing solutions, and are not counted as homeless when they should be. The undercounting has led to a lack of services in the area, and South Bay schools have had to step up to fill those gaps.
East Village’s Unfair Share of Homelessness
The city is moving forward with plans to buy a failed indoor skydiving building in the East Village and turn it into a homeless service center.
But some residents of the downtown neighborhood are saying enough is enough. (Union-Tribune)
Without a doubt, the East Village is the epicenter of San Diego’s homeless crisis. Here’s a story from the VOSD archive on how that happened.
In Other News
• It’s been a dry winter, but San Diego has plenty of water for 2018 thanks to some serious drought prepping. (KPBS)
• Broadcom’s aggressive pursuit of Qualcomm continues. (Union-Tribune)
• A moratorium on new massage parlors in National City was set to expire March 8, but city leaders voted to extend the temporary ban as they continue to figure out how to regulate the industry. Several unlicensed parlors have popped up, and police have found evidence of prostitution at others.
• There are questions about the LGBT group San Diego Democrats for Equality’s most recent financial disclosure. (Times of San Diego)
• Two county-owned buildings, one downtown and one in Clairemont, will be turned into affordable housing.
Social San Diego
• The San Diego police dog who was stabbed several times by a suspect is recovering.
• Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher endorses John Chiang for governor in a video advertisement based on a joke I don’t get.
• Voice of San Diego turned 13 this month. Cue the bad puberty jokes.
• A birder spotted a pink flamingo in Imperial Beach. I’m not kidding.