At least six clubs have shuttered their doors in recent months because of Tijuana’s waning tourism business. But, according to daily newspaper El Sol de Tijuana, those bars haven’t stopped doing business. Jack Doron, president …
September 19, 2009
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Stories by Bob McPhail (RIP)
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Gangsta Zone
Salad a Casualty
Tijuana’s Caesar's Restaurant on Avenida Revolución, reputed to be the spot where Caesar salad was invented, has closed its doors after more than 80 years in business. The Tijuana daily Frontera reported that the restaurant …
September 16, 2009
Not an Accident
A 64-year-old grandmother is behind bars in Tijuana, accused of killing her 1-year-old granddaughter in a fit of rage by throwing the toddler down a staircase, causing fatal brain damage. According to a statement issued …
May 25, 2009
Dog Days of Doom
Tijuana’s municipal health department has begun a citywide operation to hunt down, capture, and kill dogs found running loose on the streets in an effort to stem an outbreak of illnesses caused by the tick-borne …
May 18, 2009
Cheap Life
A 17-year-old Tijuana boy faces up to 50 years in prison after his May 13 arrest for the alleged murder of a man who refused to lend the teen five pesos — about 38 cents. …
May 15, 2009
Kids Shot
The number of Tijuana minors being treated for gunshot wounds -- some children as young as two years old -- has increased about 50 percent in the past few months. In interviews with two Tijuana …
April 11, 2009
¡Choque!
Tijuana police arrested a woman on Thursday, April 9, who they say was involved in three car crashes over a distance of less than a mile. Officers remain puzzled as to why the accidents occurred. …
April 11, 2009
Imperfect Crime
Last Saturday night, April 4, a knife-wielding teenager trying to rob a video-rental store in Tijuana’s Buena Vista neighborhood looked familiar to the store’s owner. And for good reason: the same young man had returned …
April 8, 2009
Fistful of Pesos
Tijuana police arrested four medical students from the Autonomous University of Baja California on the afternoon of Friday, March 27, for allegedly stealing money they were supposed to be collecting for the Mexican Red Cross. …
March 30, 2009
Saint Death Gets Plowed
Sometime during the early morning hours of Saturday, March 21, someone using an earth-moving machine plowed under a chapel to La Santa Muerte (Holy Death), the “patron saint” of a strange religious cult popular with …
March 27, 2009
Game's End
The parents of a boy who entered an elderly neighbor’s home in the La Presa neighborhood of eastern Tijuana in search of his soccer ball ended up in jail on homicide charges after a fight …
February 26, 2009
Baja Cop Messes Up
An off-duty Tijuana police officer, allegedly driving his green Jeep Cherokee while under the influence of alcohol and speeding, struck and killed a 37-year-old woman selling newspapers on a street corner on Monday, February 23, …
February 25, 2009
Why Tijuana for sick man? Better doctors, better service, better price.
Deep-Fried Quesadillas Everything was just out of reach as I lay on my left side in a bed at Tijuana's newest and most modern hospital. I had to sit up or lie down only on …
November 15, 2007
Tijuana's St. Vincent de Paul society spreads charity to all the colonias
'The Crisis is deeper now than ever," says Father Jose Luis Mendez, referring to what Mexicans have come to call "La Crisis," the economic misfortune that has swept the country since the 1994 peso devaluation. …
June 12, 1997
Reader writers: the story I wanted to write... but didn't
Sandy and a girlfriend had gone into a liquor store, robbed the clerk, They locked the clerk in a walk-in cooler. Sandy started feeling bad about the guy. She went back and let him out.
October 5, 1989
Imperial Beach – town without pretense
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!”
September 29, 1988
What Becomes of San Diego County's 20,000 Fetuses Every Year?
The stench is much worse in the small room where BFI maintains a large gas-fired incinerator. The smell gets into your nostrils and clings. It is a cross between formaldehyde and wet animal fur.
July 14, 1988
The Governance of Imperial Beach
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 …
May 12, 1988
North County Health Services — a magnet for detractors
Even the Methodist minister is irate. So are the Lions, the Soroptimists, the Optimists, the Kiwanis, members of the Borrego Springs Civic Foundation, the Women's Circle of the Borrego Springs Community Church, and scores of …
April 21, 1988
Seabag, the San Ysidro male sex film ring
Sometime during the last year, at a motel somewhere in San Diego, a group of young men allowed themselves to be filmed naked while masturbating. Each was responding to an advertisement in a sex tabloid …
March 24, 1988
Consumer advocates UCAN and its woes
By 1983, the year UCAN - the Utility Consumers Action Network — was founded, San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s residential rates had increased by more than 400 percent over what had been charged for …
December 3, 1987
A Democrat but a tough D.A.
IT IS THE LARGEST AND BEST-financed law firm in San Diego County. Its 569 employees include 186 attorneys and 64 ftill-time investigators scattered around eight offices from South Bay to North County. It maintains a …
August 27, 1987
Saving the Balboa Theater — an uphill battle
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THE collision of dreams in the arena of redevelopment politics. One dream was that of Danah Fayman, a wealthy and influential arts patron with powerful political allies. She wanted to …
June 4, 1987
Martin Luther King changed my life as a fat boy
Public transportation is a challenge, too, especially if the bus, train, or airplane is crowded. I am not a touchy-feely guy, but I have been forced into some of the most intimate physical encounters with strangers while traveling.
April 9, 1987
The unconventional community of San Aliso Creek
“What is a bum?” asks Jo, a short, animated, talkative man of thirty whose troubled life has included a stint in prison for possession of illegal drugs, a broken marriage, and a recent flirtation with …
March 26, 1987
Camp Pendleton Marine kills older gay man — what else is new?
Very early one morning in April of 1983, David G. Smith met his death in a downtown Oceanside motel room. It was an ugly, painful, panic-stricken departure from this life. When his body was discovered …
January 29, 1987