Imperial Beach Stories
Name: Mark Thompson Lives: Ocean Beach Surfing: South of the pier in Imperial Beach “It’s a known fact that I.B. has some of the dirtiest water, but I mean, I don’t hear of people getting …
At the Mira Mesa Recreation Center, playing for my fifth-grade youth basketball team, I watched as my coach threw a chair onto the court in anger. On another occasion, the referee threw my coach out …
Gotta be careful here. To say something’s the best. But…oh, to heck with it. This is the best freakin’ sandwich I can remember munching, okay? It’s enough to make a vegan out of me. I’m …
Names: Jeff Knox and Seth Fisher Live: Imperial Beach Surfing: Imperial Beach, end of Imperial Beach Blvd/Coronado Avenue Drive to the end of Imperial Beach Boulevard. There you'll meet locals Seth Fisher and Jeff "The …
Israel and Lebanon were at war. England and Argentina were at war. In Hollywood, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed. Navy beat Army 24-7, the Chargers beat the Dolphins 41-38 to make it to …
"Everybody was cutting throats, giving stuff away just to bring the customer in."
Ask a nonresident of Imperial Beach to name a restaurant or bar in San Diego County's southernmost beach town. If he can name anything at all, it likely will be Ye Olde Plank Inn. The …
Diana Cartman (a pseudonym) suffers from a recurring nightmare. The dream runs like this: Cartman watches television in her living room a few blocks from the ocean in Imperial Beach. It's getting late, and she …
I got invited to a biker party and imagined characters from the Clint Eastwood movies that I grew up watching -- fat bellies, black widow tattoos, facial hair.As I approached the party in Imperial Beach, …
I went to two different parties on the Saturday before Halloween. The first one was in Imperial Beach. Lea, who invited me, told me most of the people attending were employees of the UCSD Medical …
Balloonatics 703 Palm Avenue, Imperial Beach www.balloonatics.com 619-563-1088 In business since 1978, Balloonatics was San Diego's first balloon designer and decorator. Balloon arrangements cost anywhere from $35 to $75 and come laden with candy or …
IB? My friend Mark nailed it the other night. We had fallen into conversation outside Cow-A-Bunga, the ice cream and coffee place at the entrance to IB’s pier. It was getting dark. You could just …
From July of 2000 to April 2001, a new kind of crime wave hit San Diego County. Boiled down to penal-code labeling -- 211 for armed robbery, 459 for burglary -- the crimes weren't anything …
Tin Fish Imperial Beach Pier, 910 Seacoast Drive, Imperial Beach www.thetinfish.net There are a lot of crab cakes in the naked city -- crumby crab cakes, fancy crab cakes tasting of too much green pepper, …
Ye Olde Plank Inn 24 Palm Avenue, Imperial Beach 619-423-5976 The Plank is IB's old-line hangout (it opened in 1886 as a liquor store). The low, palm-frond palapa dangles with nets, puffer fish, mini brass …
Seacoast Inn 800 Seacoast Drive, Imperial Beach (619) 424-7556 or (619) 424-5183 There is no better ocean view, period. Not if you like to see as much ocean as you can. The blue-and-white stucco Seacoast …
Beaches from Imperial Beach to Oceanside To find out where grunion are running, call Fish and Game at (858) 467-4201 Legal in March and from June through August. They must be left alone April/May. Grunion …
The mackerel’s wide-angle eyes are attracted to shiny, moving objects. “Mackerel are top-fish. They’re hunting, they bite. Not like bottom fish, which have lips and suck, looking for dead stuff or leftovers,” says Rita.
“San Diego? This isn’t a county, it’s a country!” This how it starts. Dave, sounding off after a couple of beers. Dave’s latest rave is San Diego County. You might call him a county nationalist. …
M. Alice: Is there any relationship between our local village of Nestor (east of I. Beach) and Nestorianism, the early Christian heresy? — Jim Edwards, Coronado Nestor a nest of Nestorians? Not likely. There once …
“If you use eminent domain, you’re setting up people who spent life savings to live on the beach. Now, they’re going to be forced out to build a giant hotel for tourists from out of town.”
Gated communities are the coming trend in Southern California, ad although this isn’t really a gated community, it sort of has that feel. People here feel safe because of the security measures.
A Spartan existence is a tiny cottage a block from the Imperial Beach pier doesn’t bother Dana Clark. Nor does the mattress on the floor that covers a third of his living space; he’s never …
Last year when sheriffs deputies were ticketing people for walking their dogs on the Coronado side of the imaginary line on the oceanfront, townspeople revolted, organizing under the banner of “Don’t Mess With My Dog!”
Politics in Imperial Beach is like a football game without a clock: the game is never over, there are lots of injuries, and no one ever wins. The apparent losers of a 1985 political battle …
Brian French was not the sort of guy who’d just grab a shotgun and blow a man away. But that’s what he did.
“They don’t know what they’re doing, but they go ahead and do it anyway,” says William Kellogg, referring to the Army Corps of Engineers, the California Coastal Commission, and the City of Imperial Beach. The …
Imperial Beach has been a long-time media favorite for contaminated water coverage, but now, ironically, the city has become headquarters for an environmentalist commune that calls itself Ecolibrium. Twenty-five of the group’s forty members (two …
When Imperial Beach Mayor Brian Bilbray ran for state assembly two years ago, he received an endorsement from the twenty-five member San Diego Log Cabin Club. This group of gay Republicans found Bilbray to be …
Imperial Beach Mayor Brian Bilbray, whose ambitions for higher office are no secret, has enough problems on his hands in the recent past, with his city’s treasury nearly empty and with his beaches closed for …
Just how smelly are thirteen acres of raw sewage? Soon, very soon, we shall find out. Next Monday a federal agency is planning to start building an open pond for raw sewage just over the …
Your view of the world is unique if you live in Imperial Beach, just five miles north of the Mexican border. If the street where you live is on a narrow corridor of land between …
A sign outside of the Marina Inn in Imperial Beach proclaims it as the most southwesterly bar in the United States. It is no idle bit of public relations. From the inn’s parking lot you …
There is an island of the coast of Imperial Beach that should not be there. It was once the crossbar section of the municipal T-shaped fishing pier, but fierce storms last winter destroyed the south …
King Creon: there had to be one man who said yes. Somebody had to agree to captain the ship. She had sprung a hundred leaks; she was loaded to the waterline with crime, ignorance, poverty …