I love driving through Coronado, admiring the comfy million-buck family houses where they might shoot updated versions of old TV favorites... Leave It to Lord Beaver, say, or Sir Ozzie and Dame Harriet. But not …
September 21, 2011
Coronado News & Stories
Coronado Loves Locavore
Family talks about dead Coronado woman Rebecca Zahau
The woman on the other end of the phone is in tears. “I was just praying to God when you called,” she says. “That He’ll help us with what happened to our daughter. We are …
September 14, 2011
Coronado Police Have Your [License Plate] Number
Next time you visit the city of Coronado, be advised. The Police Department now has "a new high-tech device that will give Coronado Police officers the ability to scan license plates on parked or moving …
August 19, 2011
Coronadans voice opinions on Spreckels Mansion death
Rarely has Coronado been so abuzz. In the early morning of July 13, a young naked woman hanged herself (or did she?) at the Spreckels mansion on Ocean Boulevard. Two days before, a six-year-old boy …
July 27, 2011
Avenue Subs in Coronado
“Okay, Goldilocks. Have a nice hair day.” That’s me to Carla. It’s my day off. We’re in the Crown City — Coronado — for her date with Diane, “the greatest stylist in the universe.” “Hair …
Barbarians' Delight at Calypso Cafe
Only rich people and felons live behind walls, right? Society’s afraid of felons, and rich people are afraid of society. So, back to Medieval days! Walled cities! Uh, except now we call them gated communities. …
It Was Scary Up There on the Coronado Bay Bridge
What would you do at witnessing someone about to jump from the Coronado Bay Bridge? Consider the tale of real estate appraiser Bryan Knowlton, a 42-year-old resident of Kearny Mesa. On Thursday, May 12, Knowlton …
June 1, 2011
Mayoral Maltreatment
Harmony seldom makes a headline. — Silas Bent I hadn’t set out to torture the mayor of Coronado, but things rarely turn out the way I expect. I didn’t even know Coronado had a mayor, …
May 4, 2011
Lamb’s Players Theatre's The Book of the Dun Cow
In Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Chauntecleer the Rooster dreams an omen. A beast “like a hound” terrorized him with such a fearsome look, the rooster almost died. He wakes up groaning and tells his …
April 20, 2011
Lots of Laffs at the Sun Deck Grill
"Bet you can’t,” says Larry. “Bet I can,” I say. “Five-dollar meal at the Hotel Del Coronado?” He laughs into the phone. “No way.” Larry’s an old pal. Wants to get together. Except he lives …
Rename the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge?
With the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday (February 6) days away, I am launching a proposal to rename the San Diego–Coronado Bay Bridge in honor of the 40th president of the United States. I …
February 1, 2011
Mr. Mad Dog
“Did you get some practice time in?” Scottie Blinn asks the half circle of students, electric guitars at the ready, seated in the teacher’s lounge at the Sacred Heart Parish School in Coronado. “Yeah,” they …
January 26, 2011
The Glory Man at Lamb's Players Theatre
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau says doing good can have selfish motives. Goodness, he writes, “must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he …
October 20, 2010
Village Theatre in Coronado to Reopen in March 2011
There was a crowd so large outside the Village Theatre in Coronado on the afternoon of September 29, you would have thought there was a movie playing. And, after about ten years, there will be. …
September 30, 2010
Friend of Ours
“Poet, musician,” reads the little plaque. It’s about my good-time buddy Frankie — Cisco — and I couldn’t put it better myself. He died early last year. We all chipped in the $1400 — sisters, …
Cozy Mystery
I’ve passed Crown Bistro scores of times, always wondering about it: a little white building, well gardened and with an inviting front patio in front of a small white boutique hotel, it looks charming — …
June 16, 2010
Mix 'n' Match
Serendipity? This is how it happens: “No, no! Not one step further! You want 40 bucks down the drain?” Carla has planted her feet on the sidewalk. The palm trees are whipping around her. It’s …
Straight shooting
The Navy is preparing to resume live fire near the sands of Coronado after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed off last month on a plan to establish a “naval danger zone” in the …
June 2, 2010
Coronado, Not San Diego
On May 17, a male caller to Chip Franklin’s morning show on AM 600 claimed that the Hotel del Coronado was losing reservations from Arizona residents unhappy with the City of San Diego and the …
May 18, 2010
Sensual Spa
The ever-enchanting Mistral (née Azzura Point) has been remade again with a renovated dining room and new chefs. The executive chef for the whole resort property is Marc Ehrler, a hotshot direct from France. The …
May 12, 2010