Cover Story
Mission to sainthood: Recently canonized Father Junipero Serra helped establish the California mission system, but is he really saint material?
Washington, D.C., stands some 3,000 miles from the site of Mission Carmel, once the home base of Father Junipero Serra, an evangelist Franciscan from the island of Mallorca. With a bum leg and a handful of starving Spaniards, that tiny priest founded a backbone of missions in what was then called Alta California—a massive hinterland…
Pewter Plough Playhouse founder Jim Buckley dies at 102
The Cambria community has lost one of its major icons. Jim Buckley, who founded the Pewter Plow Playhouse in Cambria in 1976, passed away Sept. 23 after experiencing declining health issues. Those involved with the playhouse say Buckley was a driving force being the venue and its productions, often serving as a director, actor, singer,…
Now that Haggens is leaving, what would you like to see take its place?
Sarah Alarid Cal Poly student “Trader Joe’s. I’d love to have one close to campus for grocery shopping.” Cheyenne Cramer assistant manager “I have three kids. An indoor playground for kids would be great. Like the ones they have in LA.” Miranda Davis Cal Poly student “Albertsons. I think that store was run a lot…
The 7th Annual New Times Music Awards honors local music stars at the Fremont Theater
View a slideshow from the 2015 New Times Music Awards. It’s Friday, Sept. 25, and the Fremont Theatre did everything but roll out a red carpet for the seventh annual New Times Music Awards, which has drawn more than 400 fans to the art deco auditorium. The air is abuzz as artists and fans mill…
Grief relief: Hospice of SLO County introduces children’s support program
Death is part of life. But still, in our culture, even with the widespread knowledge of such a fact and its inevitability, it’s incredibly difficult to talk about for anyone. Especially kids. Hospice of San Luis Obispo County takes that difficult subject matter and encourages productive and healing dialogue with counseling services. Starting Oct. 9,…
Cougars & Mustangs
What better way to start off the savory month of October than with a headline so steeped in distilled awesomeness that it could raise the dead with a jubilant whoop? “Cal Poly Researchers Map Shipwrecks with Underwater Robots.” It doesn’t get any better than this, folks. Better fold that pair of kings now. A research…
Diablo debate: Town hall meeting highlights federal, local, and state stakeholders in nuclear plant’s future
The domes of Diablo Canyon’s two nuclear reactors rise above the facility and look out over a scenic view of the Central Coast. The twin domes’ inner workings are complex, mostly a mystery to people living in the towns and cities that benefit from the power generated by the facility. The issues and science surrounding…
A colorful garage prompts an eviction threat at the Santa Margarita Mobile Home Park
The Santa Margarita Mobile Home Park is an intimate, usually quiet community tucked into the southeastern corner of town against the Santa Margarita Ranch. About 50 homes line the park, evenly spaced up and down four narrow lanes. Row by row, the boxy mobile homes—mostly painted white or in soft pastel colors—vary from having empty,…
Coastal Commission delays Pismo BeachWalk Hotel appeal
The appeal of a controversial resort hotel project in Pismo Beach will have to wait another month until it goes before the California Coastal Commission. Kevin Kahn, district supervisor for the Coastal Commission’s Central Coast District office, said the appeal of the proposed 128-room, 94,000-square-foot hotel and resort—which was initially scheduled to come before the…
SLO Supes to consider steps toward community choices for energy production
At its Oct. 6 meeting, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors will be asked to take a small step that could set numerous choices on the horizon of the area’s energy future. The question is whether supervisors think the county should participate in two different studies that would assess the feasibility of forming…
Two Paso Robles men found guilty of murder
Two Paso Robles men are facing possible life sentences, after SLO County juries in two different cases convicted them both of murder charges. The first, 52-year-old Thomas Yanaga, was found guilty on Sept. 25 of the murder of 32-year-old Marshall Savoy after a trial that lasted more than four weeks. Prosecutors argued that Yanaga shot…
Stalled contract negotiations could mean CSU faculty strike
Chanting and picket lines could disrupt the pastoral calm of Cal Poly SLO’s scenic campus, after stalled contract negotiations between California State University System management and one CSU faculty union raised the possibility of a strike. The California Faculty Association, which represents roughly 25,000 lecturers, adjuncts, librarians, counselors, and coaches on CSU’s 23 campuses, including…
SLO County condemns Los Osos home after it was vandalized
Los Osos resident Hilary Roberts Grant remembers the day she decided that she had to do something about an abandoned, unmaintained house across the street. She said the house on 13th Street had been unoccupied and untouched for years with piles of debris in the yard, mold, termites and rats running rampant, and squatters sneaking…
Quit personal attacks on those who don’t agree about oil trains
Since he doesn’t have facts, Patrick Sidun, a Phillips 66 employee, is personally attacking those opposed to hauling 520, mile-long oil trains through the county each year. He called them “a minority of retired wealthy people living in exclusive, expensive homes in a relentless fear campaign against working families’ lives,” in a letter to the…
Petty-note junction
Taking dune buggies off of sweet jumps and breaking your neck is a thing, and it’s not just a thing for visiting Valley rednecks. Locals like to head to the Oceano Dunes for debilitating spine and neck injuries, too. But all those awesome ATVs, sand rails, and other motorized deathtraps kick up a lot of…
The ‘vocal minority’ isn’t imagining oil-by-rail hazards
If Patrick Sidun (“Fact vs. fear in the Phillips 66 debate,” Sept. 24) thinks “a vocal minority has raised alarm about mostly imagined hazards from transporting oil to the Nipomo refinery via railroad,” he hasn’t been paying attention, nor would it appear that he’s read the project’s Environmental Impact Report. For the record, that “vocal…
Phillips 66 is a good neighbor, and progress is inevitable
The Santa Maria Refinery is a small facility located on the mesa that has been a good neighbor for 60 years. They own 1,780 acres of land but only use a very small portion of it. Refineries intentionally purchase large plots of land to provide a buffer between them and the surrounding community. This adds…
Corporate greed
The Phillips 66 rail spur extension project, if approved, would add 1.3 miles of track to an existing rail spur for transporting a flammable and toxic mixture of crude oil, called bitumen, and a diluent from Alberta, Canada, to the Santa Maria Refinery on the Nipomo Mesa. The mixture is extremely explosive: A train transporting…
Bristols Cider’s Merry Hell and Whiskey and June’s Whiskey Sour
Bristols Ciderhouse in Atascadero has been raising the bar for local cider since its opening last year, and they are continuing to produce new and exciting offerings since the late ’90s. Next month, expect three new ciders—one fermented with beets, another fermented with fennel, and the other a funky sour. Until then, swing by the…
Munchies
Cutting the ribbon: Oki Momo Asian Grill will celebrate a grand opening at 2256 Broad St. in SLO this Oct. 9 from 5 to 9 p.m. Enjoy food samples, dance performances by the Cal Poly Lion Dance Team and special giveaways (for more information, email jon@okimomo.com) … Kreuzberg Lounge will host a party celebrating the…
Whiskey and June and microwave: Atascadero’s beloved dive gets a menu makeover and a craft cocktail trailer
What do you remember about Terry’s Bar and Grill? Was it the taxidermied animals on the walls or the photo of Marilyn Monroe behind the bar, coyly eating breakfast in bed? Was it the “grill,” aka the microwave that nuked your 1 a.m. cheese enchilada after too many beers? Was it the smoking patio/parking lot…
Opera San Luis Obispo presents ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ and ‘Pagliacci’ Oct. 10 and 11
When’s the last time you went to the opera? That’s what I thought. Get your cultural big kid pants on, grab a pair of binoculars, and check out Opera San Luis Obispo’s upcoming performances, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci showing Oct. 10 and 11 at the SLO Performing Arts Center. The citywide arts collaboration features the…
California Sculpture SLAM hits SLOMA
People have been etching stone and carving forms from the earth since the dawn of civilization. The first sculptures were probably crafted in an effort to coax the hunting gods into supplying an easier meal. A lot has changed since then, but the underlying passion remains the same: molding structures out of nothing and hurling…
Struggle of Juarez on display at Cuesta
For photographer Jorge Arreola Barraza, coming back to his hometown of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, is intensely bittersweet. Walking the crumbling streets with his camera, he does the only thing he can do: document the devastation. Rows of blank billboards rise up from trash-strewn streets; the storefronts sit shuttered, the plazas abandoned. Fear looms thick in…
Trash to bikini? One woman cleans beaches with artsy results
A bikini-clad woman poses for the camera, exposing flashes of sun-kissed skin. She’s poised on the bow of a boat, backdropped by azure Avila waves. It’s a pretty picture, the kind of photo you’d expect from any swimsuit ad. But this is no ordinary photo. The model’s white bikini top is made from Tribune newspaper…
Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band play Oct. 2 at Vina Robles Amphitheatre
I was told I’d have between five and seven minutes to interview Ringo Starr last Thursday, and right on time, my phone rang at 11:40 a.m. and a female voice said, “Are you ready for Ringo?” Yes, I was ready. “Glen Starkey!” came that familiar voice. “Ringo Starr!” I gushed. In case you didn’t know,…
Clubs 10/1/15 – 10/8/15
Goin’ South THE CLIFFS RESORT: 2757 Shell Beach Rd., Shell Beach, 773-5000, cliffsresort.com. F. MCLINTOCKS SALOON: Two locations: 750 Mattie Rd. in Pismo Beach and 133 Bridge St. in Arroyo Grande. 773-1892 or mclintocks.com. Live music at the Pismo Beach location every Fri. and Sat. from 6-9pm. Tennessee Jimmy Harrell and Doc Stoltey play on…
