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Big bust at the Grape Street dog parkA failed plea to city officials to install a new fence to enclose the Grape Street off-leash dog park in South Park led to a crackdown that resulted …
Citizen pot bustI thought about the spring day my two hiking buddies and I were off-trail, crashing through dense thickets of tangled brush. It was growing dark, and the three of us had gotten separated. …
I live in Tijuana, SmugglersvilleI was hobbling back from the store with a liter of milk, when I saw three young men sitting on the steps in front of a house in my Tijuana neighborhood. …
San Marcos in crosshairs of GrowthzillaBack then, the mammoth housing development was called Merriam Mountains. It's now called Newland Sierra, but the opposition's pitchforks are jabbing at the same worries: density, traffic, wildfire evacuations, water, …
The Chula Vista kidnapping of Eddy Tostado by Arellano cartelAt 3:39 a.m. on January 7, 2007, Columbia Street was almost deserted. Little Italy had been plagued with car burglaries — “It got where you couldn’t …
Original Artists Work to Restore Chicano Park MuralsArmando Nuñez is touching up a skeleton. He and I are standing amid blue scaffolding beside the wall of an I-5 ramp to the San Diego–Coronado Bridge on …
A tour of San Diego alleysJack Whalen hands me a beer. “I’m king of this alley,” Whalen says, then points west. “Down there, the king of that next alley is Tom Sweet. He’s 97.” Whalen …
Pictographs of Cabrillo's San Salvador east of Jacumba"There’s some petroglyphs over in Pinto Canyon," Frank said as he passed me on the trail. Frank Johnson, a handsome 75-year-old man, with flowing white hair and a superb …
San Diego treasure hunters, not as nerdy as you think.“Start over there, where the sand is shiny.” For wet-sand hunting, Russ recommends the area of the beach kept perpetually wet by the tide, so that’s …
Last year I was the youngest player in U.S. Championship"I played Nakamura. He was 18 years old at the time, at the 2005 U.S. Championship. His name is Hikaru Nakamura. And he's the top U.S. …
No drive-through in my drivewayThe fast-food vendor that owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell is concocting a new recipe for San Diego's Golden Hill community. Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. proposes to rebuild …
Border angelsI wanted to learn about a group called Border Angels that, among other things, sets out water in the desert areas of the 66-mile San Diego sector. Usually, gallon bottles of water are placed …
He loves the people no one wants"I'm used to voices downtown, of agony and pain and just dysfunction, and I had the window down a little so I could hear. I look and there's a …
More or less sudden mountainsThe rocks in and around San Diego have composed amazing, fiery stories for a very long time. An ancient ocean once covered this county; volcanoes used to spew here; and more …
The woman we never forgetBy Abe Opincar, Amy Gerstler, Barbarella Fokos, Deirdre Lickona, Ernie Grimm, Geoff Bouvier, Jeannette DeWyze, Jeff Smith, Jennifer Ball, Jim Morris, Laura McNeal, Mary Grimm, Matthew Lickona, Patrick Daugherty, RF Jurjevics, …
Board up and go"What had happened was one of the SANDAG tow truck drivers had stopped to help this fellow and the guy had shot him. Four or five or six times. A Marine saw …
Present at the creationWhat follows are the words of Padres who came before, beginning with players who were on that first team, who played in that first game, April 8, 1969, recorded as a 2–1 …
CowboysLegend and song have pictured rodeo cowboys as hard-driving, hard-drinking, woman-chasing free spirits. “And that’s true,” says the Reverend Bob Harris, a handsome 52-year-old former cowboy himself. “But I’m not trying to persuade these people …
Decent men elude Mark Twain’s daughterDespite Clemens’s preferring one daughter over the others, all three sisters experienced the frequently tyrannical side of their father. Caroline Harnsberger, Clara’s biographer, has written that Clemens’s daughters were afraid …
San Diego's most wretched neighborhoodIt is a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in April and a small crowd has gathered in the Mira Mesa shopping center mall, the hub of a community that is as far …