OB Rag

Last week, our good friend Brett Warnke gave a “full-throated defense” for those scooters scattered around about town. He adores them and thinks “they’re the best idea to come to San Diego in a hell of a long time,” and wants to “subsidize thousands more of the damn things in low-income neighborhoods, in addition to more bicycles.”

His rant is all about the technology and eco-friendly advance that will save us from ourselves (rising sea levels, polluted air, etc), but fears we’re about to regulate them and ourselves “backward into a political logjam,” due to our “reactionary debates disguised as ‘progressive’ or ‘safety-concerns’.

Brett does usher in some good ideas – but he misses the main point about scooters

By Richard Riehl / The Riehl World / October 1, 2019

A funeral was held last month at the site of Iceland’s Okjökull glacier. A century ago it covered nearly six square miles, measuring 164 ft. deep. Today, it’s less than one square mile, 49 feet thick. The shrinking sheet of ice can no longer be called a glacier. A tombstone plaque was placed at the site:

A Letter to the Future

This monument is to acknowledge that we know
what is happening and what needs to be done.
Only you know if we did it.
August 19, 2019

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / Sept 25, 2019

Two education experts and fathers have issued a clarion call to “Let the Children Play.”

Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle co-authored Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive. These two fathers with young children were both shocked by the education system they found when the American scholar Doyle took his family to Finland and Finland’s Education Director General, Sahlberg, brought his family to the United States. Their book is a tour de force about play practices globally and the research supporting the developmental need for children to play.

The authors document the stunning reduction in authentic outdoor self-directed play children in the United States and around the world are experiencing.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board meets this Wednesday, October 2, at 6pm at the OB Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Ave.

The board has one new project to review, plus a review of emergency repairs made over a year ago, and will receive an update on the Dog Beach Access Ramp improvements.

4811 Pescadero Ave.

This is a project where the applicant is seeking a Coastal Development Permit to demolish an existing single family residence and detached garage, and construct a new single dwelling unit and new duplex units.

Newport Pizza to Close Sadly, we hear that the 35-year-old business on Newport Avenue is set to close. .

Dirty Birds Has Opened The grill and sports bar at the corner of Cable and Santa Monica

People’s Restaurant Space for Lease The former space of the OB Garden Cafe is now up for lease,

12 Years for Causing Fatal Crash on OB Freeway

OB’s Oktoberfest Coming Oct. 11-12 The 15th annual OB Oktoberfest with beer garden, live music and contests is approaching
Arson Team Looking at Video for Arsonist Who Set OB and PL Fires

Friends of OB Library Report Success at Recent Book Sale

Young Man Stabbed in the Midway, Mother Has Panic Attack – Both Hospitalized

Liberty Station Art District Programs

Local Businesses in da “Newz”

Why We Paddle

Our signature awareness event, the Paddle for Clean Water, is the largest non-competitive surf event in California.

Each year, hundreds of participants paddle their surfboards, SUPs, kayaks and other paddle craft around the 1,971 ft. pier – the longest concrete pier on the West Coast – to raise awareness and funds to protect clean water and healthy beaches in San Diego County.

There’s been a wrinkle in the normal running of Ocean Beach’s Farmers Market held every Wednesday on Newport Avenue. One of the parking lots the Farmers Market utilized was withdrawn from the event. The owner of OB’s renown Apple Tree market was allowing the folks who operate the street market to use half of his parking lot for their vendors. They were renting the space for $100 a week.

But back in May of this year, Apple Tree requested the OB Mainstreet Association, which manages Farmers Market, to withdraw vendors from the concrete space normally used by Apple Tree for their parking lot. And now, Saad Hirmez, the owner of Apple Tree, is running his own mini-Farmers Market

The big news from the Peninsula this past weekend is the rash of fires in OB and Point Loma set intentionally, beginning early Saturday morning, September 28.

At least five fires set are being investigated as arson, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said. Plus, firefighters point out all of the fires were within 10 miles of each other and were mainly rubbish fires set in backyards. This series of arson fires is actually the third such series

By Joni Halpern

Dear Ohio,

A few days ago, I was sitting at the breakfast table with my husband, each of us reading a newspaper, downing the bitter tales of our democracy with sips of sweetened coffee. I never read the paper anymore without whispering “Oh my god,” or “Jesus Christ,” and sometimes “WTF?”

That day, I waded through the front page of grief. First, there was the story about whole families flooded out of their homes by tropical storms, losing every material thing they possessed except the clothes on their backs.

By Jim Miller

As we move into yet another election cycle, perhaps it might be useful to start with a little perspective. Back in 2003 in the introduction to Under the Perfect Sun, Mike Davis, Kelly Mayhew, and I summarized the political landscape of San Diego as such:

War, tourist spectacle, endangered dissent: these are the perennial axes of modern San Diego history. Here, where illusion is a civic virtue, reality has always nestled inside spectacle like a set of Russian nesting dolls.

San Diego’s Cohn Restaurant Group will, at least for now, be running Surf Rider Pizza in Ocean Beach (and La Mesa) as it was part of a group of restaurants run by Gina Champion-Cain, who is now accused of federal fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Cohns – David and Lesley Cohn of the Cohn Restaurant Group (CRG) – will also be running The Patio on Lamont in Pacific Beach, Saska’s in Mission Beach and the Surf Riders as those eateries will placed “under the operational guidance” of the Cohns beginning September 30.

It’s at the monthly Ocean Beach Town Council meetings where one learns a lot of what’s going on in the community. From reports on the OB Library’s programs and updates on other community groups to announcements from political representatives of various office-holders, to shift changes with police and lifeguards, to what’s going on at OB’s Elementary School – these meetings are where’s it at.

And it’s during the public comment portion of the meeting where details of the many goings-on occur.