The Morning Report
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Illegal pot shops around the county tend to pop up faster than authorities can shut them down. But even when a business is operating without a permit, it’s still supposed to adhere to laws aimed at providing access to the disabled.
One disabled San Diego resident has targeted nine illegal storefronts so far with lawsuits alleging they discriminated against him by not providing him proper access, VOSD’s Jesse Marx reports.
Some of the shops have opted to pay the man to settle, rather than risk being dragged into court, where their existence would become much more visible. One landlord, though, is fighting the suit, saying the disabled man “has not suffered any damage nor has he been inconvenienced in any manner.”
One attorney with experience in disability cases said it doesn’t matter whether a shop is operating illegally – “If you’ve got a business that’s open to the public, it is required to comply with the law.”
Latest ICE Raid Results in Dozens of Arrests
ICE agents arrested 44 immigrants during a recent sweep, and another nine just before the sweep began, City News Service reports. Some of the people arrested had not committed crimes outside of entering the country illegally; some others had committed nonviolent offenses.
The U-T has previously reported that San Diego has seen the most arrests of non-criminal immigrants in the country.
• Kevin de Leon, who’s challenging Sen. Dianne Feinstein, will be in San Diego Wednesday, where he has several events meant to draw attention to immigration and border policies. De Leon, a San Diego native, plans to condemn the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ decision to get involved in the Trump administration lawsuit over California’s sanctuary policies. De Leon wrote SB 54, the so-called sanctuary state law that is at the heart of the lawsuit.
Culture Report: Change and Chalk
The Mission Federal ArtWalk, happening in Little Italy this weekend, is ramping up its live and participatory events, including spoken word and poetry event, a ceviche competition (!) and an interactive mural-making project that will be “like a giant coloring book for visitors to come and fill in,” Kinsee Morlan reports in this week’s Culture Report. Artists at the event will also be making large chalk drawings.
Also in this week’s report: Morlan has an update to her big story on an SDSU professor’s history of bad behavior, the city approved a new plan to facilitate “placemaking” activities and more.
Hot Take: Scooters Are Good
If you live in San Diego and have eyes and/or ears, you’ve probably heard many gripes about the sudden proliferation of dockless bikes and scooters around town.
You’re not alone: Some cities have moved to temporarily stop companies from operating until rules can be nailed down, and, as NPR noted this week, you can check out the hashtag #ScootersBehavingBadly for evidence of bad scooter etiquette.
San Diego urban designer Howard Blackson doesn’t want San Diego to go the way of cities like San Francisco, where officials are confiscating scooters. Instead, city leaders should embrace scooters “as an opportunity to build the infrastructure needed to support such a fun way of getting around our extremely beautiful city,” he writes in a VOSD op-ed.
Quick News Hits
• John Lynch, who was CEO of the Union-Tribune when the paper was owned by Doug Manchester, might be jumping back into the news business. Nieman Lab’s writeup of the news includes a pretty harsh lookback at the Lynch/Manchester tenure.
• As the county moves forward on its plan to eliminate the Animal Services Department, it’s laying off 38 employees. (Times of San Diego)
• Rep. Duncan Hunter is setting up a special fund to pay for his legal expenses amid an ongoing criminal investigation. The House Ethics Committee has to OK the fund, and “only a handful of members have been permitted legal defense funds in the past decade,” the Union-Tribune reports.
• A former startup employee was allowed to speak in favor of a bill by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher on Tuesday thanks to a rare legislative subpoena, which freed her to testify despite having signed a non-disclosure agreement with her former employer. Gonzalez Fletcher’s bill targets arbitration agreements in employment contracts, which she says helps keep victims of sexual harassment silent. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• A state watchdog has opened a formal investigation into County Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk Ernest Dronenburg over a donation to his re-election campaign. The investigation began with a complaint lodged by Matt Strabone, a private attorney who is running against Dronenburg. (Union-Tribune)