Category: Economy

$283.7 million in tax revenue raised in the third quarter of 2025 alone

by: Chris Ponce / Fox5 San Diego / Dec 2, 2025

Legal cannabis sales in California brought $283.7 million in tax revenue in the third quarter of 2025, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) announced Tuesday.

Cannabis excise tax revenue funds childcare programs, youth substance abuse prevention, environmental recovery, medical research and more, according to CDTFA. Officials shared that more than $7 billion in cannabis tax revenue has been raised since 2018.

During the third quarter, July to September, this tax rate temporarily increased 19%. However, the tax rate returned to 15% following legislation signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

“We’re rolling back this cannabis tax hike so the legal market can continue to grow, consumers can access safe products, and our local communities see the benefits,” Newsom said in a news release.

Assembly Bill 564 stops a 25% tax increase on the cannabis industry, hoping to promote long-term success of the industry in California.

A brand new Smart & Final Store will be opening in the Midway District on December 10. And it appears it will be opening in the former Big Lots! on Rosecrans.

Here’s part of the announcement on Morningstar.com:

New location will deliver exceptional everyday values and club-sized savings to local families and businesses

Smart & Final, the smaller, faster grocery warehouse store known for delivering value to both households and businesses, will open a brand new 25,000-square-foot location in San Diego’s Midway District on December 10. Located at 3705 Rosecrans St., the new store will offer Smart & Final’s signature mix of fresh groceries, club-sized options and one-stop convenience to the Midway District – a neighborhood in the midst of a transformation into a walkable entertainment, retail and residential hub.

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / December 3, 2025 

Ridership on local buses and trolleys is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic much faster than the national average, but San Diego transit officials say that progress is jeopardized by a looming financial crisis.

Annual ridership on Metropolitan Transportation System buses and trolleys rose more than 7% to 81.2 million during the fiscal year that ended in June — only 4.2 million lower than the pre-pandemic ridership of 85.4 million.

MTS’s ridership recovery of 95% is the second highest for large transit systems in the nation and is well above the national average of 85%, according to surveys by the American Public Transportation Association.

Buses and trolleys have also begun to attract more riders who have cars and aren’t transit-dependent. Trips by such people, which MTS calls leisure rides, jumped by 44% in fiscal 2025 compared to fiscal 2024.

MTS officials attribute the improving ridership numbers to new services — including an express bus connecting downtown and the U.S.-Mexico border — and to more frequent trolley service and enhanced security at stations and on trains.

This OBcean Actually Rides the Bus

By South OB Girl

San Diego City officials who tout “transit-oriented development” for Ocean Beach may have never actually taken the bus in our community.  I have, and what I’ve seen is both instructive and alarming.

OB streets are not wide enough for buses to operate safely.  Cable Street, the main thoroughfare for MTS Bus #35 and MTS Bus #923, which are the current buses in OB, is one lane on both sides, with cars parked up and down the whole length of it. Buses routinely drive close to or over the double yellow lines. When the bus makes a left turn down Cable from West Point Loma Blvd. or a right turn onto West Point Loma Blvd. from Cable, it takes up all the space of both roads, and it blocks the entire intersection of Cable and West Point Loma Blvd.

Most drivers in cars behind the bus try to pass because of the frequent stops along the route. Because there isn’t much room, passing cars cross over into the other lane when there is no oncoming traffic. Too often, the result is a collision.

From Associated Press , San Diego UT

Starbucks will pay about $35 million to more than 15,000 New York City workers to settle claims it denied them stable schedules and arbitrarily cut their hours, city officials announced Monday, hours before Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders visited striking baristas on a picket line.

The development came amid a continuing strike by Starbucks’ union that began last month at dozens of locations around the country [including San Diego].

The workers want better hours and increased staffing, and they are angry that Starbucks hasn’t agreed on a contract nearly four years after workers voted to unionize at a Buffalo store. Union votes at other locations followed, and about 550 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned stores are now unionized. The coffee giant also has around 7,000 licensed locations at airports, grocery stores and other locales.

Workers and the company dispute the extent and impact of the strike, but Mamdani, Sanders and some state and city officials sought to amplify the baristas’ message by mingling with scores of strikers and supporters outside a Starbucks shop in Brooklyn.

“These are not demands of greed — these are demands of decency,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist who ran on pledges to aid working-class people, told the crowd. Some workers carried giant mock-ups of Starbucks takeout cups, bearing the union’s logo instead of the coffee chain’s insignia.

Joe Adamantly Still Supports 30-Foot Height Limit and Opposes Turquoise Tower

By Madison Beveridge / PB Monthly SDU-T / December 1, 2025 

Large-scale, controversial housing projects and people staying overnight in vehicles were the top concerns voiced by Pacific Beach residents during a recent town hall meeting.

The Pacific Beach Town Council hosted the Nov. 5 meeting with City Council President Joe LaCava at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in PB.

With attendees ranging from locals to government officials, the primary focus was a question and answer session with LaCava.

The councilmember, whose District 1 includes Pacific Beach, La Jolla, Carmel Valley, Torrey Pines and Del Mar Mesa, served as a sounding board for the community during the meeting. The evening was a chance for locals to connect directly with their elected city representative and address the region’s short- and long-term goals.

“Several of the most notable topics discussed were the two large project developments happening in Pacific Beach right now,” said PB Town Council President Charlie Nieto. “The first is the Turquoise Tower, which is a 23-story residential tower. The other is a newer project called Chalcifica, a 136-unit project.”

Zohran Mamdani’s plan for free buses is not a pipe dream. Montgomery County, Maryland, made its buses free this year.

By Alexis Goldstein / Truthout / December 1, 2025

During the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic downturn, many people couldn’t pay their transportation costs, and often didn’t. In New York City in 2021, some 21 percent of bus riders did not pay the fare, a figure that grew to 48 percent in 2024. Some local governments, including New York City, responded with reduced or free fare programs.

From 2023 to 2024, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) ran a zero-fare bus pilot that served around 43,000 riders. The pilot, championed by then-assembly member Zohran Mamdani, offered free trips on one bus in each borough.

To expand this small pilot to universal zero-fare buses throughout New York City is a tall task, with a total 2024 bus ridership of 409 million and 6,300 buses. As mayor-elect Mamdani and his administration look to grow zero-fare buses in New York, they have a stellar example just a few hours south of New York, in Maryland.

The largest free bus program in Maryland by ridership is in Montgomery County, a suburb north of Washington, D.C.

“The world needs more independent bookstores.”

By Roxana Popescu / San Diego Union-Tribune / November 26, 2025

When Patrick Stewart walked into the vacant building that would become the new Library Shop Mission Hills bookstore, he was hit by two feelings: It’s perfect. And oh, boy. The empty bookshelves lining the walls spoke volumes.

But things needed to be spruced up and brought up to code. The building had housed the Mission Hills library from 1961 to 2019 and then sat unused for about five years, not counting the occasional squatter.

“We saw a lot of potential,” said Stewart, the chief executive officer of Library Foundation SD, which supports the library system through outreach, philanthropy and advocacy. “To be able to be in a community that is super, super supportive of the library, and super supportive of the Library Foundation, I think you couldn’t be in a better environment, a more welcoming environment, a very literary environment.”

The annual Shop Small campaign by the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association has returned, of course, and held its kick off last Saturday along Newport Avenue.

Kristen Keltner, OBMA’s events and program manager, said the Association not only “encourages locals and visitors alike” to shop in OB but also wants people “to enjoy the holiday spirit and what small towns like Ocean Beach have to offer.”

What are some of those unique finds? Keltner points to the holiday decorations on light posts in the downtown business district and Christmas photo opportunities with the Pacific Ocean or the “Happy Holiday OB” banner, draped across the 4900 block of Newport Avenue, as a backdrop.

Then there’s the OB Christmas Tree, scheduled to appear today, Tuesday, Dec. 2.

What’s dubbed Shop Small Saturday in Ocean Beach is part of the movement known as Small Business Saturday, which follows Black Friday at the beginning of the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping season.

By Dave Schwab / Times of San Diego / Nov. 24, 2025

Vino lovers: If you haven’t visited urban winery Gianni Buonomo’s new digs in Midway, you owe it to yourself to do so.

The boutique winery, previously on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach, has relocated to 3492 Pickett St. in a building offering 18 on-site parking spaces.

The name, buon uomo, means “good man” in Italian.

Gianni Buonomo founder and owner Keith Rolle noted he benefits from being near the Pechanga Arena, just a seven-minute walk away.

“We opened here officially in October of last year,” he said, noting he’s going to be expanding his outreach, working with area restaurants to convince them to allow their customers to bring in Gianni Buonomo wine.

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / November 22-24, 2025

An aggressive plan to add nearly 20,000 potential new homes to Clairemont over the next 30 years got a key green light Friday when the City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee unanimously approved it.

The new growth blueprint for Clairemont — the oldest and largest of San Diego’s suburban neighborhoods — also includes a new fire station, new parks and a possible new trolley station at Jutland Drive and Morena Boulevard.

The blueprint, which could boost the neighborhood’s population from the current 80,000 to about 119,000, also shrinks vehicle lanes on Morena Boulevard and Genesee Avenue to make way for bicycle-only and bus-only lanes.

There are also some ambitious goals like aerial tramways over Interstate 5 to connect Clairemont to coastal areas, and a missing link hiking trail that would connect Marian Bear Park and Tecolote Park.

And the neighborhood’s 30-foot building height limit would be wiped out in many areas to allow high-rise and mid-rise buildings that would range in height from 40 feet to 65 feet.

Campillo Is Lone Vote Against Approval

By Maura Fox / San Diego Union-Tribune / November 24, 2025

A development blueprint that plans for tripling the population of the College Area over the next 30 years is one step closer to being adopted, after a San Diego City Council committee voted to approve the update.

The community plan, which hasn’t seen an update since 1989, will guide land use and development for the neighborhood for the next two to three decades. It will now head to the full City Council for review.

It projects ambitious population growth in the College Area and expects more opportunities for cycling and public transit, green spaces along busy streets and a campus town center near San Diego State University.

“I’m excited to see how, outside this plan update, we can work to make those recommendations a reality for the community,” Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, whose District 9 includes the area, said at Friday’s meeting of the Land Use and Housing Committee.

The plan update passed 3-1, with Councilmember Raul Campillo, who represents nearby District 7, voting no.