Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Mayor Faulconer's short-term rental idea — pro and con
Of course there's this massive loophole built into Kev-boy's con. It's a not a bug—it's the feature. It's intended to keep things unsettled long enough for enough LLCs and corporations to crowd out homeowners so that later the former can claim "unfair restraint of trade" if anyone tries to get serious about STVRs. [Again][1], we have to adopt the simple, clear, and certain rules that [Los Angeles][2] and [San Francisco][3] have—requiring owner occupancy for individual room rentals and limiting to 120 days a year rentals of whole residences by primary homeowners. There simply is no other solution. And for what it's worth, i believe that [Geranium is right][4], that there is a method to Kev-boy's madness: by allowing STVRs to worsen the housing crisis, it makes it easier for him to continue to sacrifice neighborhoods to his developer donors. **This is a two-front war against [all the residents][5] of San Diego**; and if we don't treat it as such, we're going to end up either as refugees or the few left in Raqqa-by-the-Sea. [1]: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jul/06/t… [2]: https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/neighborh… [3]: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/overview-… [4]: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jul/06/t… [5]: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jul/03/r…— July 14, 2018 1:55 p.m.
Have a fraud or environmental complaint?
Only where merited. Can anyone cite anything nontrivial Brauny has ever said that turned out to be true? In this case, I'll wager "the units that will handle their issues" will be sure to keep from making a difference, lest they be eliminated the same as ACE.— July 12, 2018 9:39 p.m.
Have a fraud or environmental complaint?
Sure, Brauny—and the check is in the mail...— July 12, 2018 5:21 p.m.
Cleveland Ave. and Ohio St. chimeras
Wow, people are still running this scam? I ran into similar Craigslist "landlords" over ten years ago, but for an apartment further south—also on Cleveland Ave. (Could have even been the same character.) In my case, the apartment was already "rented" (after being posted for less than an hour), but I sounded "like such a nice person" in my email, they wanted to get me pre-approved for the next opening in the building. They also couldn't meet with me in person or let me see any of the units...— July 12, 2018 5:17 p.m.
KPBS shutters local paper reading
That's great! You're volunteering to pay for a few dozen people for whom even $10 a month is more than they have to spare! ;-) So glad you've decided to do something rather than whine or snark about it. Even if the minimal service you describe [isn't true broadband and subject to data caps][1] as to be almost useless. [1]: https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/att-l…— July 10, 2018 11:14 a.m.
KPBS shutters local paper reading
It's unpleasant how the abled are commenting on the many options available to those who can't afford them. I know from the internet-only bills I've seen that even low-income qualifiers have to pay at least $40 a month, which is too often the difference between choosing food, medicine, utilities, or not. Radio and TV are free to all; and until one can say the same for online accessibility, these comments sound equivalent to "let them eat cake."— July 9, 2018 11:55 p.m.
Romance of the beach fire tainted
For exactly two reasons: that people on the street should not be deputized to enforce laws; and that none of us should be obligated to carry out the duties our elected representatives shirk. Either get the system to work as intended or admit you don't have a solution. (And I note your use of "they" to reflect that you yourself did not volunteer for beach cleanup.) And for the record: George Orwell, Upton Sinclair, Barbara Ehrenreich and numerous others have whole careers to speak to your begging off getting *your* hands dirty digging "generally" because you're a "journalist."— July 9, 2018 11:04 p.m.
KPBS shutters local paper reading
Looks like KPBS is taking the "public service" out of public service broadcasting. Given the competing media alternatives they use to justify this cut, it actually makes it more likely that a significant portion of their [1.1 million][1] monthly audience is comprised of the [657,500+][2] seniors and persons with disabilities under age 65 who cannot afford internet or cable access. And as noted, this was all content provided freely to the station. So it will be interesting to see what programming they think is more valuable to fill the time. [1]: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/us-polit… [2]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sand…— July 9, 2018 3:30 p.m.
A well-timed contribution of special interest
The pay-for-play angle definitely needs to be looked at further. But for now, thank you for pointing out what is probably the most infuriating claim made by the STVR crowd: "the need to protect incomes of people who decided to open illegal hotels in residential neighborhoods." Real estate speculation is no different from any other market speculation. If it turns out not to pan out, it's not society's responsibility to bail gamblers out. At least in this situation, unlike with the stock market or derivatives, the buyers aren't actually losing their initial investment: they still own a still valuable asset, one that can be kept or sold at a profit for use as legally intended. But instead, they want us to miss sight of that and argue about *how much money they could make* if allowed to cotinue to break the law, so let's change the law for them! Yet it is the actual homeowners located next door to STVRs that quantifiably *do* lose equity in their investment, as it cannot be used or sold for what it would otherwise be worth. When they make this an argument, our elected representatives need to remember who is really being cheated—and that they are exclusively the people who are registered to vote for or against *them*.— July 8, 2018 3:17 p.m.
A well-timed contribution of special interest
Regardless of the messenger, Logan Jenkins' [message is spot-on][1]. Under developer influence in all [sorts of land use issues][6], shills intentionally ignore or disregard the principle of **zoning**. In this instance, areas are zoned residential for a reason: one can no more buy a home for exclusive but otherwise legal commercial use as a massage parlor, auto shop, pub or restaurant than one can a hotel. That's why [the city attorney says they're illegal][2]. And we've already seen how this has played out under Kev-boy's administration. Regular code enforcement has been gutted: first by depleting staff (apparently now [only 27 zoning investigators][3] for [a city of 1.4 million][4]), then by effectively redefining codes on the books [out of existence][5]. So it's particularly ridiculous when Kev-boy says allowing a free-for-all on STVRs will be different from how he has other enforcement conducted. (Especially when the city attorney has said she "[does not have enforcement officers, plus any case that her office took on would be considered a civil matter][9]" that would not be under her jurisdiction unless code compliance complaints escalated to charges.) Until or unless we craft a solution (such as [Los Angeles][7] and [San Francisco][8] have) that requires owner occupancy for individual room rentals, or limits to three months or less rentals of whole residences by absent rather than absentee owners, the results will continue to be catastrophic to our quality of life. [1]: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/columnis… [2]: http://docs.sandiego.gov/memooflaw/MS-2017-5.pdf [3]: https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/cedd… [4]: https://www.sandiego.gov/economic-development/san… [5]: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jun/08/s… [6]: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/jan/06/t… [7]: https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/neighborh… [8]: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/overview-… [9]: https://obrag.org/2017/05/city-attorney-elliott-a…— July 7, 2018 3:50 p.m.