OB Rag

A brand new facebook page for the “No Target in Ocean Beach” group has just been set up. (As of this writing, already 92 93 people “like” the page – and it literally just went up.) Here it is.

Here is what the facebook page states:

About

OB means community. It means local shops and lively culture. It means flare and it means funky, pride and positive vibes, casual — not corporate. A Target Express on Newport Ave directly threatens what it means to be OB. Join our fight to keep it out.

STORY

Recently, the community of Ocean Beach found out that Target Express intends to open on Newport Avenue, which will directly and detrimentally impact the local economy. We intend to stop it.

I heard talk on TV about people being “stunned” that the president would say that both sides were at fault when he had “rebuked” (if you really want to call it that) the white nationalists’ stunningly violent and reckless behavior in Virginia just the day before.

Stunned about what? I would have been stunned if he hadn’t taken his words back. What happened was the dude desperately had to get back to his true self, back to speaking from the dark places in his mind.

And the way his mind works

Thomas Ultican / Tultican

Another editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune attacks teachers and the California public education system. The author has a personal work history of harming California’s public schools by scheming to privatize them. The editorial was written by Rae Belisle. She is identified as a former member of California’s State Board of Education, but she is so much more than that.

Ms. Belise opened her attack,

Nearly 400 San Diego cancer patients receive free medical marijuana from a company named after one of Ocean Beach’s famous surf spots: “the Jetty”.

The San Diego company, Jetty Extracts, gives out the cannabis extracts every month through a program called the “Shelter Project.”

By Bob Dorn / San Diego Free Press

For whatever reason, California envy has been rising lately.

Remember Rick Perry’s failed attempt to lure high tech and other of the state’s businesses (Elon Musk’s Tesla, included) to Texas in 2013 and 2014?

Did you know that a Utah state legislator has offered a bill to support California’s secession from the United States?

From OB Town Council Newsletter:

At our Ocean Beach Town Council (OBTC) meeting on Wednesday, August 23rd at 7pm at the Masonic Hall (1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd), we will host a community dialogue on the proposed lease of the Antique Mall building to a Target Express storefront in OB.

By Brian Clulow

Most of the OB Rag readers with families already know that the area around Ocean Beach and Point Loma has few playgrounds for kids.

This fits with a broader city trend as there have been numerous articles and studies over the years regarding park deficient communities in San Diego.

One highlight for our local communities of the Peninsula has been that for years the families around Silver Gate Elementary have been able to take their kids to the playground area there after-hours and on weekends, a great boon for parents with small children.

It turns out the Target Express potentially coming to Ocean Beach is not just some chance encounter between the corporate giant and a small, seaside community.

Corporate Target has been having a difficult time lately and has been putting into play its plans to turn its business around. It was just in February at the end of that quarter Target reported its profits plummeted 43% as sales at its stores sagged due to “the mass migration by its customers online and elsewhere.”

It’s been really tough for malls and traditional retailers as they compete against Amazon and other online retailers as shoppers hit the keyboards instead of the aisles.

San Diego involved in new study which tells the story of craft beer’s astonishing rise and geographic clustering

By Richard Florida / City Lab / Aug. 15, 2017

I enjoy living in Canada for many reasons, but one downside has been my distance from my home country’s craft beer revival. Since Canada’s outmoded liquor laws prevent much of the good stuff from flowing across the border, I’m reduced to hauling cases back to Toronto from Michigan, where my wife’s family live.

While Canada has experienced a craft beer boom of its own, it’s impossible to compete with the sheer variety of brews being produced in America these days.

Restaurant Review

Kaiserhof Restaurant & Biergarten
2253 Sunset Cliffs Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92107
619-224-0606

It’s been almost 30 years since I have had a meal at Kaiserhof. The last time I did they were still located in the Mission Valley/State College area.

When my friend Barbara suggested that we go to lunch at Kaiserhof I jumped at the chance. My background has German/Hungarian heritage and I thought it would be nice to see how authentic Bavarian food would taste compared to what I make in the kitchen.

Although there is a parking lot in the back of the building, there were no available parking spaces

As I enter my thirtieth year as a professor at a public college of one kind or another, I’m used to the constant political fray that comes with being in the middle of funding battles, debates about education reform, and the culture wars, but this may be the first time in my long career that I have begun a new semester with the knowledge that a large number of Americans no longer see higher education as a public good.

Over the summer, the Pew Research Center released an interesting poll that helps explain where we are at this political and cultural moment in America. The survey revealed that most Republicans now believe that institutions of higher education have an adverse effect on the United States.

OB Planning Board’s Project Review Committee Meeting

By Brett Warnke

The OB Planning Board’s Project Review Committee on August 16 included only three agenda items but turned lively as locals pushed back on a proposed plan for redevelopment.

The builders and architect presented drawings of a trendy modern design — a style popular for vacation rentals and in the changing neighborhoods along the coast. In the design, there are two three-story single-family residences on a .15 acre site at 4719 Bermuda Avenue. The plans, which call for four-bedrooms and 3.5 bath, in the builder’s words, maximize their profits as well as the space of the two narrow lots.