Category: History

OB’s legendary head shop, The Black, has re-opened. April 6 was their “soft opening” and the place appears to be the same, although by the looks of it, there are more beachy products – paddle boards, towels, etc.

Editordude: Paul Krueger testified before the City Council on Monday, April 6, about his experiences collecting signatures for a “Repeal the Fees” November ballot measure. This essay is based on his remarks to the council.

By Paul Krueger

I stand with the 81 percent of San Diegans who strongly oppose paid parking in Balboa Park.

Last Saturday, during the “Repeal The Fees” ballot measure rally at the Organ Pavilion, I stood by the parking payment kiosk behind the pavilion to gather signatures for the initiative. And I talked with locals and tourists as they waited in line to pay. What I heard – and saw – was both enlightening and infuriating.

The line at the kiosk stretched as long as 20 yards. It moved painfully slow. There is no display of instructions at that kiosk, so many visitors couldn’t begin to figure out how to pay. Some didn’t know they needed their license plate number to process their payment. If they had to go back to their car to get that information, they lost their place. Others didn’t know if they needed to return to their vehicle to put their payment receipt on their dashboards (they don’t).

When the wait hit 10 minutes or longer, some visitors worried they’d get a citation before they could pay. This was a legitimate concern; I saw at least one parking enforcement officer checking plates. Others were upset they might miss performances at the Houses of Hospitality or Balboa Park Club which brought them to the park.

No Fireworks on Nights of Drone Shows — California Coastal Commission Meeting is April 15

By Donna Frye

Sea World San Diego is seeking a Coastal Development Permit (CDP) from the California Coastal Commission to conduct up to 110 aerial drone shows, that would be approximately 15 minutes in length and “include up to 1,000 illuminated drones above the waters of Mission Bay for a pilot period of one year from the date of CDP issuance.” The Coastal Commission meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 15 to hear the request; it is Item Number 10b on the agenda.

The Coastal Commission staff report states in part:

“SeaWorld San Diego has traditionally ended many of its park days with a nighttime fireworks show. However, in response to growing concerns related to the impact of fireworks on coastal resources, as well as improvements in drone entertainment technology, SeaWorld is proposing a pilot period of one year for aerial drone shows.The drone shows would involve up to 1,000 illuminated aerial drones that would be programmed to autonomously take off, perform an up to 15-minute show up to 660 feet above Mission Bay, and then return to land. The shows would involve the drones following pre-programmed routes that depict various shapes formed by their onboard colored lights, accompanied by music played at ground level for patrons within SeaWorld.”

The surreal mural on the east side of the Template in OB has gotten some attention. Richard Schulte runs a photo-dominant blog called cool san diego sights and recently shared a series of pics of the mural.

Signatures by the artists appear to be MURALIS, ART BY SOUP, EATHDUST, HAILYBROUS, JORDINDAVID, and SOURCE!

Here are Shulte’s pics, including details:

Twenty years ago, the San Diego Reader ran a long cover story called “90 Years of Curl,” an in-depth review of surfing history, particularly in San Diego, written by Jeannette DeWyze.

Then this year on March 30, the online version of the Reader republished it as “San Diego surf heroes going back to 1910 — When Duke Kahanamoku tried the OB Pier.”

[What OB Pier would that be? The one that is permanently closed right now was opened in 1966. There was another pier built earlier – south of where the 66 pier is.]

This story first appeared in the Reader on December 14, 2006.

There’s a good chance Ralph Noisat caught the first wave in San Diego. He died in 1980, and as he wasn’t a man to brag, his pioneering role might have been lost were it not for his board. He made it himself when he was a boy, and it was still in the Noisat family home in 1998 when Ralph’s daughter, Margie Chamberlain, was preparing to sell the Mission Hills residence. Chamberlain realized the heavy wooden board might have historic value, so she called the California Surf Museum in Oceanside. No one there knew anything about Noisat, but the museum staff was thrilled to accept the board when they heard what Chamberlain had to say about her father.

Here are samples of photos sent to us last weekend, too late for the live-blog (that shut down about 5:30 pm after beginning at 8:15 in the morning) that we now would like to share.

Downtown San Diego — Waterfront Park

From Change Begins With ME .Indivisible.

Commentary — From the Trenches

By JW August –– Special to the OB Rag

When President Donald Trump’s calliope of confusion is at its noisiest, we’ve learned a game is afoot in numerous places.  This particular game comes with a warning from a source who has a highly placed position in a large federal agency.

The source is named “S” and says an end-of-March announcement about moving the U.S. Forest Service out of Washington, D.C. is a foreshadowing of a massive reorganization effort of the federal government. The suggested agency suspected of being the next ordered to move will be the Bureau of Land Management, according to my source.

The overall goal, made in the name of efficiency, is to punish the cities and states that vote Democratic and reward Trump loyalists with jobs and money, says our source. By creating these new offices, away from D.C., there will be far less oversight, and far more access.

The source says that “as long as it’s a Republican town, they’re going to get an infusion of cash and jobs because their plan is to go out to isolated areas of the country so that they can do whatever they want.”

The building at 4833 Santa Monica Avenue — known as the OB Post Office — is for sale! LoopNet advertises it. For $4,995.000.

It’s been there for decades — back to the 1950s. Yet now it’s on the chopping block. For nearly $5 million. Prime location. The ad above says “Trophy Coastal … Property.”

Many questions abound.

Are there plans to open another post office in Ocean Beach?

Postal Service Would Mail Ballots Only to Those on Official Voters List

By Jane C. Timm and Ryan J. Reilly / NBC News / March 31, 2026

President Donald Trump is again trying to exert control over American elections, signing an executive order Tuesday that aims to create federal lists of citizens and ask the U.S. Postal Service to transmit mail ballots to only those people.

The executive order, his second related to elections since he retook office last year, is sure to be quickly challenged in court. The U.S. Constitution gives states the power to set voting rules and administer their own elections, though Congress has the ability to set some regulations, too.

“That’s a big deal,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office, adding that he didn’t believe the courts could overturn it. “I think this will help a lot with elections. We’d like to have voter ID. We’d like to have proof of citizenship, and that’ll be another subject for another time. We’re working on that. You would think it’d be easy.”

by Ernie McCray

I’m nearing 88 years
and along with that
there are, of course,
a few fears,
anxieties rising
just from seeing
all my meds
set in front of me
on the coffee table
where I used to place a few knick-knacks,
and there are the
aches and pains
suddenly appearing like hoodlums
crashing a party,
and the loss of the ability to do
things I once
did very well
like getting up
and sitting down
without making a sound,
and I am constantly using my cane

Tribe Never Consulted During Planning for Hidden Valley Ranch Housing Project

by Katie Futterman / inewsource / March 29, 2026

Tribal leaders have found human remains and evidence of a burial site – first in October and twice this March – at the construction site of a housing development first approved in Poway over 20 years ago.

The San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians is calling on the city and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop work on a portion of a 420-acre site on the east side of Old Coach Road immediately.

In October, Johnny Bear Contreras, the chair of the cultural committee for the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, got a call from fellow cultural monitors telling him to come take a look at the Hidden Valley Ranch project.

When he arrived at the site of what’s slated to be 41 single-family homes, he found just what the tribe had expected: human remains.

by JW August / Times of San Diego / April 2, 2026

A San Diego council member suggested at a recent committee meeting that the city look into ways to take revenue from golf division leases to help fund all parks and recreation needs.

The Golf Enterprise Fund provides for the care and maintenance of the city’s three public courses. At the end of last year it held an impressive $55 million.

With a city facing a $120 million budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year, this tempting target is fodder for those tasked with filling the gap. Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera, at a Land Use and Housing Committee meeting last month, asked that city staff study the possibility of shifting more money away from the golf fund to cover other expenses.

In 2025, the gross revenue for San Diego’s municipal courses was $41.4 million, 9.9% of which was paid to the general fund.