Search: Marshmallow

Beach sand can make you sick – even without marshmallows

July 17, 2009 by Source
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by Mike Lee / Union-Tribune / July 16, 2009

Add playing in the sand to the long list of fun things that may be bad for your health.

A new study says you risk getting an upset stomach and diarrhea if you dig into the granular stuff to fill toy pails, build sand castles or bury yourself. You’re better off walking along the shore or swimming in the surf.

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Who Started the First OB Marshmallow Fight?

July 4, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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Most locals know about the famous OB Marshmallow Fight that happens after the fireworks each July 4th right at the beach. Two great throngs gather and begin pelting each other with the mushy white gobs. This goes on, with each side advancing or retreating until enough people tire and the event melts away like the last fireworks.

Who did start the first OB marshmallow fight?

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The Point Loma Operational Lighthouse ‘Is in Good Standing for Another Century’

March 5, 2024 by Source

By Eric Duvall / sdnews.com / March 5, 2024

La Playa Trail Association presents its next history lecture, “The Restoration of San Diego’s Operational Lighthouse” by authors and twin sisters, Kim Fahlen and Karen Scanlon at Point Loma Assembly, 3035 Talbot St., on Tuesday, March 12. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with lecture 6-7 p.m. A donation of $10 is accepted at the door.

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Becca Taylor – From OB Town Council to Head of County Democratic Party

February 20, 2023 by Source

Some of us knew Becca Taylor as a mere mortal when she served on the Ocean Beach Town Council Board. Today she’s the head honcho of the San Diego County Democratic Party. So, who is Becca Taylor?

Ken Stone at Times of San Diego has a fairly thorough report on Taylor and begins:

Granddaughter of a preacher. Growing up Food Stamp poor in a “very conservative” Texas household. Owner of two Harleys (one named Luna). Overcoming PTSD from Afghan service.

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February 22, 1974 – The Day Ocean Beach Lost Its Innocence

February 22, 2021 by Frank Gormlie

February 22, 1974 was the day Ocean Beach lost its innocence. It was the day a man – recently released from prison – who was associated with the then network of OB radicals, tried to commit what we today call “suicide by cop.”

Peter Mahone walked up to a San Diego Police officer sitting in his patrol car in the OB Pier parking lot – and pulled out a gun and shot him. Mahone then calmly walked back to his little shack on Abbott and waited for the fusillade. And it came with a vengeance. Police surrounded Peter’s little hole in the wall and poured lead into it.

Miraculously, no one died that day. The officer shot in the parking lot survived – as did Peter Mahone.

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Small Group Burns Masks as ‘Tools of Terror’ in Protest in Mission Bay Park

August 10, 2020 by Source

By Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / August 8, 2020

As if casting out demons, dozens of people tossed pricey KN95 face masks into a fire pit Friday in Mission Bay Park.

The coverings were depicted as “tools of terror” being used to “turn neighbor against neighbor.” They were a “precursor to adult mandatory vaccination” and “getting everybody angry.”

Said one older man, wearing a “MAGA FIGHT CLUB” shirt: “I’m ready to die for this mission” but: “First of all, we need to get Trump re-elected.”

The discarded five-layer masks — fresh from their cellophane packaging — carried their own defiant messages into the Ski Beach flames at an event labeled “Burn Your Mask Bonfire.”

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Mike James: A Look at Past Ocean Beach Street Fairs and a ‘Radical’ Proposal for the Future

July 6, 2020 by Source

Back to the Future: A Proposal to Replace the OB Pier Fireworks Festival With A Light and Water Show

By Mike James

In 1980 I was 24 years old and part owner of the James Gang Custom T-Shirts with my brothers Ron, Rich, Greg and Pat. I was also serving my first term as the president of the Ocean Beach Merchants Association (later renamed Mainstreet Association).

As a new organization formed in 1978, we were looking for ways to promote the community. I had remembered watching the Fourth of July fireworks off the Ocean Beach Pier while on vacation in 1974. An event that ended a year later due to lack of sponsorship.

So in the spring of 1980 I proposed to a skeptical OBMA Board of Directors to bring back the fireworks.

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May 4, 1970: Kent State Murders 50 Years Ago Today – ‘The Day the World Turned Upside Down’

May 4, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

Fifty years ago exactly, on May 4, 1970, was the day the world turned upside down for an entire American generation of young people. It was the day National Guardsmen on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio aimed their M1 rifles at crowds of unarmed demonstrating college students and fired.

15 students were hit by bullets – four of them died either instantly or within minutes and eleven were wounded, one so badly he was maimed for life.

This day, then, stands out – as Pearl Harbor did for an earlier generation, as 9-11 did for a later generation. It was one thing to protest the Cambodian invasion and the war in Vietnam, it was quite another to be shot to death by American soldiers on an American college campus for protesting the wars.

The date May 4, 1970 will forever be associated with the murders of four young people.

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Ocean Beach 10 Years Ago in July 2009

July 23, 2019 by Frank Gormlie

What was going on in Ocean Beach a decade ago? In July of 2009? We took a gander at our archives from that month – and discovered a treasure trove of old articles covering issues that still resonant with us today. From gentrification to fireworks, from Sunset Cliffs to the “Marshmallow Wars”, the OB Rag covered these local issues – and more. Take a look.

Fireworks are costly

As part of a group report by OB Rag writers on the 2009 Street Fair, Gary Gilmore showed us the money. He wrote:

The rockets’ red glare is gone. The echoes of the bombs bursting in air have faded. The volleys of marshmallows have been put to rest for another year. It’s time for an accounting. Where did all the money go?

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Thinking About Race and the YMCA

June 27, 2019 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

An issue with racial overtones has come up in San Diego, centered on the Jackie Robinson YMCA located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

It’s caught my attention because I’m reminded of one other time I associated race with a YMCA.

First of all, though, I must say I love and appreciate YMCA’s.

I mean I was a Y brat as a kid.

I learned to swim and do arts and craft at the Y. I once held the pancake eating contest at the Tucson Y Camp where I also gained an appreciation for horseback riding and archery and backpacking and enjoying singing and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows around an open fire.

But back in those days, the 1940’s, I had to deal with racial overtones at my local Y.

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The Ocean Beach Street Fair in 2009 – 10 Years Ago

June 13, 2019 by Frank Gormlie

OB Street Fair 2013 TomC longview

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.

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It Was 5 Years Ago When the San Diego Planning Commission Tried to Cut-Out the Very Tool Ocean Beach Uses to Prevent Over-Development

May 14, 2019 by Frank Gormlie

At the most recent OB Planning Board meeting, I had to do a double-take when an older gentleman came into the meeting room late and was sitting in the very back. It was David Steffens – a man OB planners knew 5 years ago when the OB Community Plan Update was up for approval with the Planning Commission and City Council.

But no one on the Board that night – except for one – knew who Steffens was. He had come to the meeting to talk about problems with people living in vans at Dog Beach parking lot.

Yet – in an ironic twist, he was there that night to ostensibly aid the Planning Board, operating under the OB Community Plan, in figuring out how to deal with the problem. It was ironic, as I recognized Steffens as the man who led the opposition to the city approving OB’s update to its Community Plan five years ago. He owns one of the McMansions just off the park. Five years ago, he led the effort to squash OB’s tool in controlling over-development, the low floor-area-ration that OB’s Community Plan uses.

After the meeting, I tried to explain all of this to some of the remaining Board members – and realized in a near-jaw-dropping moment – that there was no one left on the Board who was around during that period 5 years ago – except for Jane Gawronski. There has been at least one entire turn-over of the Planning Board during this last half decade.

So, I decided to repost the following article, published in May of 2014, as a recounting of those heady days back then when

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News from Ocean Beach and Point Loma – September 2018

September 10, 2018 by Frank Gormlie

New Pet Store Opening on Bacon Street

Review of Long Branch Torrey Pine by Advisory Board Postponed

Protest at Famosa Property on Sept 29

Scientists are finding pollutants after storms can stay trapped near shore longer than previously thought.

COME INSIDE FOR THESE AND MUCH MORE

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The Colorful History of the Rowdies, Radicals and Ruffians of Ocean Beach

August 15, 2018 by Frank Gormlie

OB Longbranch-riot-LaborDay68

Originally posted Aug. 15, 2018

Downtown Ocean Beach during these times on any summer day or night is extraordinarily packed with people, as locals and visitors mingle on the beach, on the Greens, and in the numerous noisy restaurants and pubs that line the commercial streets.

OB’s reputation as being San Diego’s “laid-back” beach community precedes it as tourists flock to our liberal seaside village of tolerance, peace and hipness all in search of being part of it – even for just a moment – in their search for happiness. Little do they know there actually is a rough and sordid underbelly to OB’s traditions and history.

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Updates from the Ocean Beach Town Council Meeting

June 29, 2018 by Frank Gormlie

President Marcus Turner opened up the non-agenda comment portion of last Wednesday’s monthly meeting of the OB Town Council – always a treasure trove of local issues and announcements.

Over a dozen members of the board looked out to an audience that approached 60 residents and government officials. (The main forum for the evening was about short term vacation rentals – reported here in a separate post.)

Matt Beatty, head librarian of the OB branch, and this reporter announced the coming “OB Shelf” to be organized over the next few weeks, with materials, books about OB or books by local authors.

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Just Who Is Gretchen Newsom?

October 27, 2015 by Frank Gormlie
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Editor: Now that Gretchen Newsom has announced her intention of running for mayor of San Diego, we offer this interview of Gretchen nearly two years ago.

Originally posted on Nov. 26, 2013 under the title, “New President of OB Town Council, Gretchen Newsom, Loves OB’s Uniqueness“

It is plain to see why the Ocean Beach Town Council chose Gretchen Kinney Newsom as its new president this Fall. Gretchen is poised, attractive, smart, clear-headed and brings to this off-the-beaten-track seaside village more political experience than the Board usually sees in a decade.

She has not lived in OB 3 years yet – as she and her hubby Kristoffer arrived here in February 2011 – yet she was handed the reins of a most important community organization. Although Kris, we need to say, is the reason she’s here; Kris was raised in OB and lived here most of his life.

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OBTC: Toni Atkins, Marty Block and Community Grant Awards

July 27, 2015 by Source
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Report of OB Town Council Meeting July 22, 2015

By John Loughlin / Special to the OB Rag

The Ocean Beach Town Council monthly meeting was packed full of goodies with the presentation of community awards and reports from the Speaker of the Assembly Toni Atkins and State Senator Marty Block, plus the regular array of reports from law enforcement, firefighters, lifeguards and others.

Amid the long list of topics covered on Wednesday night, July 22, were surprise announcements about a feature of the OB Library – air conditioning is coming! – and the theme for the Holiday Parade.

The meeting started with the presentation of a certificate to two young community core volunteers, Soren and Kobi Oldenburg who went above and beyond the call of duty clearing armloads of marshmallows after the 4th of July OB Fireworks.

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OB Time – Kudos to Town Council and Questions for Police and Planning Board

July 9, 2015 by Source
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The Old OB Hippie Speaks Writes

Once in a while I have to emerge from my folded yoga position and comment on local happenings around the Village of OB.

Praise be to the OB Town Council – for they have led the way for a second year in a row with their “Mallow Out” campaign against the marshmallow wars of yesteryear. For the second July 4th in a row, there were hardly any marshmallows thrown down around the beach once the fireworks ended.

I did hear about a little good-natured throwing contest of marshmallows and firecrackers between people on the beach and some folks up in a balcony at the new condo complex at Saratoga Park.

But some said it couldn’t be done – but they did it. Some say it’s spoiling all the fun – but it was spoiling our environment. ,,,

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News From Around Ocean Beach

July 7, 2015 by Staff
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OBcean Lives Off the Grid

Local Kids’ Recipes Chosen in School District Contest

Trash is down this year due to Mallow Out campaign; Volunteers picked up 2,140 pounds of trash on “Day After”

OB Friends of the Library Meet Tues, July 14

OB Historical Society Presents: Newport Ave.-Thru-The-Decades – July 16th

Coast-to-Coast Run Ends in OB
Another Officer Shooting With No Body Camera
Hula Hoop Dance Instructor Got Start in OB
Background on Pizza Port
Future Lifeguards Did the Plunge

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The “Mallow Out” Campaign for Ocean Beach Continues for July 4th

July 3, 2015 by Source
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OB Town Council: Thanks for Taking Pledge – and Asks for Volunteers for “Peace Patrol” and Day After Clean-Up

Editor: From Gretchen Newsom, Chair of the OB Town Council, is all about the the continuation of the successful “Mallow Out” campaign for the second July 4th in OB in a row.

THANK YOU for taking the pledge to ‘Mallow Out!’ Your solidarity and support will help keep our streets, beaches, and ocean clean, enhance public safety, and help our local economy thrive.

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OB Town Council: Drought Remedies, Mallow-Out Campaign, Caves, Grants, Vendors and Park Rangers

June 25, 2015 by Frank Gormlie
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The Ocean Beach Town Council juggled a lot of issues last night at its monthly public meeting – drought solutions, its “Mallow-Out” Campaign, the day after July 4th clean-up, the funding of grants …

It was well over half-way through the meeting when the keynote presentations on the drought and solutions were finally made to the crowd of about forty audience members and a dozen Council members.

Drought Remedies: Native Plants, Rainbarrels, Greywater and Diet

One-by-one several presenters laid out remedies that included learning about native plant gardens, which native plants are good to plant, about installing grey-water systems in your home, and how our diets also contribute to the waste of water.

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Getting Into the Spirit of OB Street Fairs – Looking Back at the Street Fair of 2009

June 24, 2015 by Staff
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We’re getting into the swing of things like street fairs and chili cook-offs. In an effort to get into the spirit of this weekend’s OB Street Fair of 2015, we decided to conjure up the spirits of a Street Fair of yesteryear, the 2009 annual OB festival down Newport.

Six years ago, the OB Rag – in conjunction with the OB Mainstreet Association, published a series of articles about different aspects of the yearly tradition, giving extensive coverage to the musicians, the street vendors, the trolley, the chili cook-off, and where all the money came from and went.

Plus some history – was the OB Street Fair of 2009 the 30th as was officially claimed or was it the 28th as one of the founders of the tradition claimed?

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Ocean Beach Town Council Seeks Compromise With San Diego U-T Over Their Ad Circulars

May 29, 2015 by Frank Gormlie
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The OB Town Council, led by its president Gretchen Newsom, sought to find a compromise at their meeting on Wednesday over the San Diego Union-Tribune‘s mass distribution of the newspaper’s ad circulars throughout the community. There’s been a small movement in OB of late to get the plastic-bagged circulars banned from Ocean Beach – due in large part to the willy-nilly way it which they’re distributed – where many end up in gutters, in streets and on sidewalks- and then in trash cans.

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History of the Rowdies and Ruffians of Ocean Beach

May 15, 2015 by Frank Gormlie
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Originally published May 15, 2015

By Frank Gormlie

The recent spate of violence – the several stabbings down at the beach and the recent fight between bar patrons on Newport that broke the window at Lola Luna – remind me of the rough and sordid underbelly of OB’s history.

For matching OB’s reputation of being San Diego’s “laid-back”, liberal seaside village of tolerance, peace and hipness – there is a underbelly that shows Ocean Beach in a different light and gives it some of its color.

It’s OB’s history of rowdies and ruffians.

And gathered together, the stories of the different brands of rowdiness and ruffian-isms give rise to the view that OB indeed is a colorful and diverse community with quite an interesting, not-oft spoken history, with some of it downright nasty and ugly.

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A Public Interest Message About the San Diego City Charter

April 1, 2015 by Source

sandiegocityhallBy Norma Damashek

Maybe you missed the story in the NYT a couple of months ago that characterized certain San Diegans as “aggressively bland…scrubbed of their character… command(ing) so little attention…”

Yes, the description is a dead ringer for our current mayor Kevin Faulconer. But no, the story wasn’t about him.

It was about a new No.1 starter for our hometown baseball team– left in the lurch three years ago by a wily real estate developer who amassed mega-millions through canny downtown redevelopment deals with obliging city officials and then headed off to Texas with his publicly-subsidized loot. For former Padres owner John Moores, the public good was hardly the point of his business plan.

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A Call for Ocean Beach to Turn Out for Town Council Meeting – Tonight, Wed. Jan. 28th

January 28, 2015 by Frank Gormlie
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Tonight, Wednesday, January 28, the Ocean Beach Town Council is hosting their monthly public meeting, and besides dishing out the awards to December’s Holiday Parade winners, the Council will be welcoming new District 2 Councilwoman Lorie Zapf to the community. Representatives of the San Diego Police Department will also be on hand, as usual.

The meeting will be gaveled to order by president Gretchen Newsom very close tot 7 pm and is held at the Masonic Center, 1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd. See the meeting agenda.

The OB Rag urges all OBceans to attend this meeting and let Councilwoman Zapf know your issues and priorities. We especially believe there are serious infrastructure problems in Ocean Beach – such as the needed expansion of the OB Library, as well as a new lifeguard station, street lights, etc.

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Nostalgia and Anticipation at the OB Town Council

October 24, 2014 by Source
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By Lois Lane

The OB Town Council met for the last time this year on Wednesday, October 22. The usual full house at the Masonic Lodge was down in numbers – only about 50 people there – including the board members. (The general opinion was that the World Series had lured some people away who are usually there.)

As always, the public had a lot to say, and the government was well represented, although the fire department officials who were there to be introduced ran out to an emergency call instead.

But most of the program was about the OB Town council itself, looking back at a year of accomplishments, and looking forward to the busiest time of year – the holidays. October is the last meeting of the year because the OB Town Council is busy with what’s coming up.

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OB Town Council: ‘Happiness is within your reach when you live in Ocean Beach’

July 25, 2014 by Source
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By Lois Lane

Everybody was happy. The determined OB Town Council had formulated a plan that routed the forces of anarchy at the marshmallow wars on the Fourth of July. It was also awards night, where 10 lucky and deserving recipients got grants from the Town Council for their projects.

The Town Council meeting on July 23 began with congratulations all the way around for the success of their “Mallow Out” campaign. The doom-sayers who predicted riots were proved to be wrong. Reported later by the Surfrider Foundation, the trash pickup the next day was dramatically reduced from 1802 pounds of trash in 2013 to 621 this year, not all of it marshmallows, of course.

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OB Rag Looking for July 4th Monitors and OBservers

July 3, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
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Will the Marshmallow Ban Hold? Will Homeless Advocates Be Arrested?

Your online, local website is looking for a few good observers who have cameras for July 4th. That’s right, the OB Rag wants to sign up a handful of volunteers who will assist us in monitoring what happens in Ocean Beach on Friday, July 4th.

There’s a bunch of stuff to observe – and we’re not talking about the surf or the fireworks.

First, if homeless advocates go ahead as planned and feed homeless people in Saratoga Park at the beach, they may be arrested. The group that does feed homeless on major holidays say they have threatened with being arrested if they proceed with their plans. They’ll be doing this from 11 am to 2 pm.

So, we need observers with cameras and monitors for that potential scene.

And second, of course, is what happens down on the beach at night after the fireworks.

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Fun and Games at the OB Town Council

June 27, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
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You never know what you’ll learn or see at a OB Town Council meeting until you’re actually there. And this was true last Wednesday night at their monthly meeting as usual.

Nearly 60 people gathered in the Masonic Center to get in on the action of the Town Council that night. With 4 TV stations present for the marshmallow controversy, there was a certain tension in the air as President Gretchen Newsom gaveled the meeting to order. The marshmallows and the OB Community Plan were the big ticket items on the agenda, but there was lots else going on – not to mention the upcoming 35th Annual OB Street Fair.

OB Firefighters and Para-Medics Have Warnings

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