Month: June 2019

Ten years ago, June 2009, the OB Rag staff swarmed the Ocean Beach Street Fair and got down to writing and photographing the gala event of that year on a granular level. Down to the nitty-gritty. Everybody on the staff (it was larger then, prior to the launch of the San Diego Free Press) got in on it, each taking on different aspects of one of the community’s mainstay happenings at the beginning of summer.

In our posts, we gave extensive coverage to the musicians, the street vendors, the trolley, the chili cook-off, and where all the money came from and went.

Originally posted June 26, 2009

by Mike James

As co-chair of the first Street Fair, I must set the record straight. This year’s 30th Annual Street Fair is actually the 28th.

The first street fair which took place July 4th, 1982 and was an expansion of the Fireworks Festival which began in 1980 (hence the 30th anniversary).

Sponsored by the Ocean Beach Merchants Association and KPRI Radio, the event was held on the 4900 and 5000 blocks of Newport Ave. With no vendors and a crowd in the hundreds, it seemed somewhat bare compared to the hundreds of vendors and the tens of thousands that show up now a days.

By Joaquin Antique

It’s now June of 2019, more than a year since my article about the CannaBus appeared in the OB Rag.

Much remains the same – but I got a few things wrong. The bus continues to pick up passengers by the Ocean Beach Pier parking lot and takes them to the URBN Leaf dispensary on Buenos Avenue near Morena.

It still runs approximately hourly between noon and 8 PM with the last pickup at about 7 PM. If you get to the foot of Newport and there’s no bus, hang out for awhile and watch the floor show that is the pier parking lot and within an hour the bus should arrive. There’s no service on Mondays. The bus remains free and you’re allowed to smoke weed on board.

There’s a whole new batch of yard signs popping up in front yards in the Ocean Beach Heights area – the hilly section of eastern OB.

And these are true OBcean signs – signs that welcome, signs that express tolerance, respect. They say, “In our America Love Wins” – and then offers pearls of wisdom on the remainder of the cardboard broadside.

Whether there is a grocery strike in San Diego – and other parts of Southern California – could very well be decided on June 24 when union members from 7 different locals vote on whether to authorize a strike or not. If there is a strike, it would be against 3 major grocery chains, Albertsons, Albertsons-owned Vons, and Kroger-owned Ralphs.

The San Diego local, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135, will vote at the Scottish Rite Center in Mission Valley, near Local 135 offices. If a strike is authorized by the membership, a strike could be called at any time by the leadership.

The other UFCW locals involved in the contract negotiations are Local 8, based in Bakersfield; Local 324 of Buena Park, Local 770, based in Los Angeles; Local 1167 of Bloomington; Local 1428 of Claremont; and Local 1442 of Inglewood.

Run for Cover Bookstore is pleased to welcome, Natalie Freedman, on June 14 at 6 pm.

Natalie Freedman has been an educator and social worker for many years, serving as Director of elementary schools and Director of Social Services for a retirement and nursing home. She has edited the book TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS and written the chapter “Separate But Equal Education in Phoenix”.

Here’s a photo of OB’s very first Street Fair in 1983. Did anyone wear shirts way back then?

Provided by Mike James and Nicole Ueno.

Oh, and don’t forget the upcoming Street Fair on June 22th.

Editordude: the following appeal by Marianne, the owner of Run for Cover Bookstore was posted on its website a few weeks ago. We thought it worthy of reposting.

Run for Cover Bookstore Needs Your Help

Dear Book Lovers,

Our little bookstore opened 6 months ago!

What a crazy, interesting, joyous, fulfilling and challenging ride it has been. The time has come for a first assessment.
In many ways we have experienced great success but financially we are struggling.

The OB Rag has been tracking deaths and serious injuries caused by or at Sunset Cliffs since 2005 -14 years. And we have found a yearly average of 5 deaths or serious injuries at our world-renown cliffs. These include surfers who’ve had heart attacks out in the water, divers who didn’t make it back alive and people who have suffered fatal falls.

Come inside to view a chart showing the deaths and serious injuries for the years 2005 through 2018, last year. And it’s based on what information and data we have available to us. It shows a total of 24 deaths and 49 serious injuries during that period.

A juror in the recent murder trial of Noah Mitchell Jackson who was found guilty May 31 of the stabbing death of Walter “Ras” Riley, a well-known Ocean Beach homeless man known as “the Incense Man”, has opened up on reddit and described his thoughts on the prosecution case and on Jackson’s background.

With a reddit handle alternating between “JurorNumber00” and “AfroCracker”, the person – whom we assume is being truthful – was a member of the jury that deliberated for nearly 2 and a half days, eventually finding Jackson guilty of second-degree murder for his unprovoked knife attack on Riley – which took place on June 22, 2017, on Bacon Street, near Newport Avenue after Jackson encountered Riley around 12:30 a.m.

The former juror plans to meet up with other former jurors on the anniversary of Ras’ death at the spot on Bacon Street, to pay homage to the Incense Man.

It didn’t help the Midway’s image this weekend when a 7-Eleven on Midway Drive was robbed at gunpoint. It doesn’t help either then the same robber probably robbed a second 7-Eleven at Voltaire and Catalina, a few miles away.

The real damaging news about the Midway District came out this past weekend with a report that was published Sunday in the San Diego Union-Tribune about those neighborhoods where violent crime has been increasing – and the Midway District was included as one of those neighborhoods.

The authors of the report found the following:

The great news coming out of Monday’s San Diego City Council’s approval of a $1.6 billion budget is an inclusion of $500,000 for architectural work on an expanded Ocean Beach Library.

Insiders may have known about this monetary grant to push the OB Library’s expansion forward, but the report by David Garrick at the San Diego Union-Tribune described it as “among the last-minute additions” during the 2 hour public hearing. This half-million will be, of course, for the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1.

Other budgetary items noted by Garrick and of possible interest to our readers include: