Cover Story
Ready, willing, and cable: Is SLO County on the verge of a fiber-optic revolution?
Grover Beach is a city of roughly 13,000 people, 2.3 square miles, limited means, and exceptional ambition. “By the year 2030, the City of Grover Beach has successfully developed a municipal fiber network that extends throughout the City,” reads the vision statement in Grover’s 2010 Technology Master Plan. “As a result, the City has developed…
Supporters rally behind the de Groot Home
Sjany de Groot wasn’t expecting a visitor, and when a public official showed up at her door, she assumed it was another inspection. But the man who showed up at the door said he wasn’t there on official business; instead, he said he was on a break from his government job, and he wanted to…
What’s your favorite piece on exhibit at SLOMA, and why?
Erica Ellis SLOMA community engagement manager “‘We can’t go any further cause there ain’t no more land’ by John Longas. I like that, even though it’s kind of a banal subject, it has a very romantic feel.” Sally Tippman artist “‘White House Group’ by Gary Dwyer, because it’s more feeling than fact.” Doña Deack SLOMA…
Jury awards $6.7 million in Cliffs lawsuit
After a nearly three-week trial, a San Luis Obispo County jury awarded a total verdict of $6,709,300 in the wrongful death case of Tricia Rittger, a Los Osos woman who was struck and killed by a car while crossing Shell Beach Road outside Pismo Beach’s Cliffs Resort in 2011. The jury—which reached its decision on…
Residents appeal a Pismo Beach hotel project
Just when it seemed Pismo Beach was set to move ahead with plans for a 104-room hotel opposite the Pismo Pier, an eleventh-hour appeal will likely send the project to the City Council for further review. After months of wrangling with the Pismo Beach Planning Commission over the design of “The Inn at the Pier,”…
Country music legend and actor Dwight Yoakam plays Vina Robles Amphitheatre on Aug. 24!
To get a feel of what to expect from Dwight Yoakam’s show this Sunday, Aug. 24, at Vina Robles Amphitheatre (8 p.m.; $45.95 to $66.45; vinaroblesamphitheatre.com), I’ve been watching videos of him performing songs from his newest album, 2012’s 3 Pears, at The Live Room. The record reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Americana chart and…
Clubs 8/21/14-8/28/14
Goin’ South … THE CLIFFS RESORT: 2757 Shell Beach Road, 773-5000 or cliffsresort.com. CUVEE BISTRO AND CHAMPAGNE BAR: 550 1st St., Avila Beach, 595-2245. Live music Thurs. and Sat. 6-9pm. F. MCLINTOCKS SALOON: Two locations: 750 Mattie Road in Pismo Beach and 133 Bridge St. in Arroyo Grande. 773-1892 or mclintocks.com. Live music at the…
Via dei Colori calls for artists for annual street painting festival in SLO Mission Plaza
Chalk of the town The street painting festival, I Madonnari, has been a staple of downtown SLO for the past 13 years. For two days each year, both local and visiting artists are given a sectioned-off square in the Mission Plaza, where they paint images of their choosing with chalk and pastels. It’s an impressive…
Sierra Club hosts historical walk through downtown SLO
I’ve lived in San Luis Obispo County my entire life. Minus the five years I spent in college, mostly eating fried foods. I’ve muddled about the many cow fields, shopping plazas (another type of cow field), and sad aquariums of the Central Coast for most of my years. And, when I muddled about, I can…
The Great American Melodrama awakens old Ireland in ‘The Shaughraun’
The immediate efficacy of a melodramatic play becomes apparent when you find yourself empathizing with characters from a wholly other time and place. The Great American Melodrama, with its huge archive of props and costumes from throughout the ages, is especially equipped to bring anyone’s story to life and always does it for the cheers,…
Central Coast native Christy Heron pens new novel, ‘Unrequited’
There are reasons that women love Fifty Shades of Grey. It offers dangerous, titillating shock, where other romance novels offer only mundane, pool-boy fantasies; it provides women with an accessible and somewhat relatable narrator; and, for most, it falls into the guilty pleasure zone of “so bad it’s good” due to a writing style that…
Steamers of Pismo’s Bird of Paradise Cocktail and Kelsey See Canyon Vineyards & Winery’s 2011 Golden Delicious
Steamers of Pismo’s Bird of Paradise Cocktail Steamers of Pismo floor and bar manager Jay Britton is an artist. He does not wield paintbrush or pen, preferring instead the methodical swish of a stainless steel cocktail shaker filled with ice, top-shelf booze, and fresh, creative springs of this or that magical element. My hairdresser…
Playtime!
It’s great to be cheesy: The Macaroni and Cheese Festival is cutting the cheese big time on Aug. 23 at the Avila Beach Golf Resort from 2 to 6 p.m. (you will be unbuttoning the top of your jeans by the time the day is through, so why not don your new jeggings?). Gobble up…
Meet the dynamic trio behind Toro Creek Brewing Company’s ‘estate grown’ philosophy
Not all hops are created equal. This statement was clearly evident as I surveyed the 13 lush, leafy green varieties growing tall at Toro Creek Brewing Company on a balmy August morning. The towering 20-foot high vertical rows overlook a truly impressive view: From where I stood—perched atop hilly Toro Creek Farms terrain located midway…
Dorothy’s fight
Her bright blue eyes and expressive features were intent on a video playing on her mother’s iPhone; crayons were scattered on the table in front of her. She looked every bit the normal 2 1/2-year-old child, except for a distinction you couldn’t help but notice. Dorothy’s head is shaved, with just a few wispy strands…
Cougars & Mustangs
San Luis Obispo didn’t invent the wheel. It supposedly invented the Jamba Juice, but the wheel? That was Vanna White’s doing. Despite this, however, San Luis Obispo has been a mainstay of American car culture for several nonexistent years and its heavy college student influence, particularly considering engineering majors and the like, brings particular significance…
The living dead: Morro Creek Ranch is stumping its avocado trees, but they will rise again
The hillsides of Morro Creek Ranch off Highway 41 in Morro Bay are normally shaded by the greenery of 225 acres of avocado orchards. But in severe drought conditions, those hillsides are, instead, increasingly dotted with white stumps. It’s a sight that General Manager Alan Cavaletto refers to as “the graveyard,” given the similarity of…
Signs of the times: Under threat of legal action, the Morro Bay Aquarium removed misleading signs
After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the California-based Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), the operators of the Morro Bay Aquarium have removed signage that potentially led visitors to believe seals and sea lions housed there are rehabilitated animals. Though the aquarium has lacked a legal authorization to rehabilitate animals since the National Marine Fisheries Service…
Bill may require sexual harassment prevention training for farmworkers and contractors
A bill created to address ongoing problems of sexual harassment among farmworkers in California may soon become law, if Gov. Jerry Brown is so willing. Sen. Bill Monning, whose district includes SLO County, recently sponsored legislation that would amend the Farm Labor Contractor Act and require sexual harassment prevention training for contractors and employees. The…
Grover Beach’s Jim Copsey is set to retire this December
On Aug. 8, Grover Beach Police Chief Jim Copsey announced his intention to retire later this year. In addition to his 10-year tenure at the police department, Copsey has been doing double-duty as Grover’s assistant city manager since late 2013. Copsey’s announcement came as a surprise to the city, according to City Manager Bob Perrault.…
Legislation for a proposed Paso basin water district goes to the governor
After several rounds of amendments, preliminary legislation for the formation of a North County water district has passed both the state Assembly and Senate, and is headed for the governor’s desk. AB 2453, carried by Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian, is the legislative platform necessary for the creation of a proposed water district atop the ailing Paso…
San Luis Obispo County will restrict outdoor water use in Avila Valley, Cayucos, Santa Margarita, and Shandon
Come September, home gardeners and lovers of lawns will have their irrigation use restricted in four San Luis Obispo County towns, preserving a few drops in the bucket of county- and state-wide efforts to conserve water amid one of the worst droughts on record in California. The SLO County Board of Supervisors on Aug. 19…
Something there is
So there I was, naked in the desert, riding a pink bicycle with a unicorn tail through a dust storm. Hopped up on Dum Dums and peyote. In that moment, I was infinite, free, on a quest for answers and truths that stank so strongly of patchouli that I could never wrestle them within the…
That wave was needlessly exaggerated
Regarding the New Times cover page from Aug. 7 (“Diablo and the deep blue sea”), I want to admonish New Times for once again placing the citizens of San Luis Obispo County into a needless state of anxiety and paralysis. All of us who passed by the New Times cover artwork this past week now…
Draw your own conclusions
On Monday, Aug. 18, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that last month was the fourth-hottest July on record. They included a world map showing the temperature departure from average for July 2014. This data, however, is in respect to a 1981-2010 base period. It seems these scientists don’t want the public to see…
Reawaken Muhammad’s words
A 4th century Christian saint once declared, “The world is a book … and those who do not travel read but one page.” Over the years, my eleemosynary wanderlust has led me to many remote, intriguing, and tumultuous places. And true to the adage, each peregrination added a page to my understanding of our world.…
