Author: Matthew Wood

As San Diegans vote in the third mayoral election in two years, the outcome looks as foggy as the air in Ocean Beach this morning.

Heading around the neighborhood, most polling places are reporting slower than normal turnout.

“It’s been pretty slow,” said Destiny Paz, a Point Loma High School senior who is an election volunteer at the Beardsley Mitchell Funeral

Home polling place on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. “I don’t know how else to describe it. Very quiet.”

Things have been a bit livelier at the Ocean Beach Rec Center, where Rose Novales volunteers with her daughter, Eleanor.

“We’ve been busy. People have been flowing in, which is nice. I don’t want to fall asleep,” she said.

Editor: A few months ago, OB Rag reporter Matt Wood had the privilege of spending the day with OB firefighters – the crew of C Division at the Ocean Beach No. 15 Firehouse. His post was part of the Rag’s continuing series of articles about the public servants who serve the people of Ocean Beach – our effort to put faces on good folks who often go unknown to the neighborhoods they serve.

Matt’s story got great feedback and he was invited back again – this time to hang out with one of the other two divisions. Here’s his account of that day with them.

By Matthew Wood

The A Division is losing its leader. Instead of mourning the loss of a tremendous firefighter, they are taking the opportunity to celebrate.

Division captain Bryon Wenger will retire later this month as he closes in on 38 years fighting fires, 27 of them in San Diego and the last few (he can’t completely remember how long) here in OB.

To celebrate, Wenger is going for a run. Specifically, on his last day he’s going to run all the way from his home in Lakeside to the station on Voltaire. That’s 24 miles, nearly the length of a marathon.

“Well, not quite a marathon,” Wenger says with a smile.

OB Elementary Crosswalk Construction Begins – New Streetlight Added to Mid-Block Santa Monica Ave. Crossing

Slowly but surely, the crosswalk outside of Ocean Beach Elementary School on Santa Monica Avenue is coming together.

City workers put up a street light while students were on winter break, a necessity to follow city code. The next step is to put in the actual crosswalk. A discussion about the extent of this will be held at the OB Planning Board meeting on Feb. 5.

In the meantime, Joseph “Moondoggie” Pina and Wayne Simard still have their crew of volunteer crossing guards manning their posts every morning and afternoon.

“It’s coming,” said Pina. “Slowly, but it’s coming.”

They said the volunteers will still be out even after the crosswalk is (finally) built.

Vape Store Opens Near Beach

OB has its first storefront dedicated solely to e-cigarettes after the recent opening of Ocean Beach Vape Shoppe and Lounge. The store opened in the beachfront center at Abbott Street and Santa Monica Avenue, tucked away behind Shades Oceanfront Bistro and Tower Two Café.

It’s the second store in San Diego for the owners. Pacific Beach Vape Shoppe, at 1477 Garnet Avenue, has already been open for a few months.

Store manager Rachel Lester said customers can purchase e-cigarette devices, also known as “vapes,” and a number of nicotine-infused flavors.

Becky Hostetter always had a dream to open her own store.

The lifelong San Diegan and longtime OB resident had been keeping tabs on potential storefront openings in the neighborhood for a while. When the location next to the ABC Liquor store at Voltaire and Ebers opened up over the summer, she jumped on it.

It seemed like a dream location.

”My mother almost bought that building 30 years ago,” Hostetter said. “She tried to get financing but it fell through. My grandmother owned a shop further down on Voltaire.”

Hostetter called her new store Urban Upcycle, which specialized in used furniture that she would refurbish.

Newport Avenue pet shop Bone Appetit is packing up and moving at the end of the month – but only a couple blocks.

The store, which also serves as a cat adoption location, is moving to 1785 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., in the building previously housed by Las Brisas Fabric Care Center, across the street from Olive Tree Market.

“We’re downsizing a bit,” said owner Kelly Patri, who added they will lose about 400 square feet in the new building. “It’ll be cozy, but nice. We can operate in a smaller space.”

The news of graduate student Anna Bachman falling to her death from Sunset Cliffs while apparently taking a picture on Sunday is truly tragic for all OBceans.

Who among us has not been to the cliffs and probably gone a little too far in order to get the perfect view of the sunset or perfect picture to share with our friends?

The fact that it was a woman who was living in Chicago that died hits even closer to home for me. I’m a somewhat recent transplant from the Windy City, having transplanted to our beautiful beachfront utopia in the past year.

Since moving here, we have had a number of visitors from Chicago and the Midwest. We had guests visit over the holidays and took them to see what has to be considered one of the best sunset views in the world. We couldn’t have been more than a few yards from where Bachman fell.

When news broke last week that Point Loma’s Ortiz’s Taco Shop would be part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s bet between San Diego and Denver over Sunday’s NFL playoff game, it was news to the Ortiz family.

“We didn’t even know about the bet,” said Juan Ortiz, who has run the restaurant with his brother and parents since 2004.

Alex Roth, a spokesman for Interim Mayor Gloria’s office, said he did some research on social media to find a worthy restaurant for the bet and even checked out the place himself.

“We just wanted to have food that represented the best Mexican food in San Diego,” he said. “We wanted to make sure it was a product worthy of making a bet. And it was.”

Ortiz said Gloria also came to eat at the place last Tuesday, which sealed the deal.

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers started Bolo Mania in San Diego. The folks at James Gang hopped on board – and did some nice business in the process.

Rivers has gained national attention for his choice of postgame attire – a bolo tie – during the Chargers five-game winning streak that included an improbable playoff win over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Last week, James Gang owner Paul Bearce helped fuel the fire when the OB printing company started making T-shirts with a bolo tie design that said “Fear the Bolo.”

It started on Tuesday morning, he recalls. “We had a customer come in looking for anything Charger.” But all they had was one shirt that said “Ocean Beach” in Chargers lettering. Not good enough.

By Matthew Wood

By now, you may have seen the spectacular mural adorning the wall outside what is being called the “Hippie House” at Sunset Cliffs and Adair. Judi Curry has been writing about the newbie counter-cultural abode at Sunset Cliffs and Adair.

But do you know the artist behind the latest beacon of color welcoming people to the neighborhood?

Adelaide Marcus has been creating art from a multitude of media since moving to San Diego in 2005, and then to Ocean Beach two years later, but this is by far the largest scope of painting project she has endeavored.

By Matthew Wood

The city has given an extension to Phase II of the Ocean Beach Entryway Project, meaning the plan is to have the project done by the end of 2014.

It was originally scheduled to be finished by the end of this year, but budgeting problems threatened to entirely derail the plan.

“But hopefully it will be done much sooner than a year,” said Tom Perrotti, president of the Ocean Beach Community Development Corporation. “We’re happy that the city is pursuing it.”

“That project has been going on for many, many, years, and this is the last piece of it,” he said.

Perrotti said he was notified “within the last week” of the delay to the final phase of the project, which he says will be the end of a years-long push to improve the look of the entrance to OB.

By Matthew Wood

A dispute between neighbors over an endangered Torrey Pine tree has apparently been resolved, at least for now.

The tree, located in the back yard of a private residence on the 4300 block of Orchard Avenue, recently had a large branch cut off, hopefully appeasing neighbors who were calling for the tree to be completely cut down.

In August we reported about the tree in the yard of Chris Caplaneris, which his neighbors to the east said was causing cracks in their driveway and patio. “We fixed it three years ago, now we gotta fix it again,” said Adelaide Dasilva at the time, who added she had to have surgery after falling while cleaning up the pine needles.