In CA: Food trucks find a tasty loophole. And wake up, it‘s a mountain lion!
Filling in for Arlene Martinez, I'm Shad Powers, the sports and entertainment columnist at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs. I've called the great state of California my home for 17 years now, and it seems like every day I learn something new about it. Let's see what's going on today.
But first ... No, that noise Silvia Escobar of Monrovia heard in the middle of the night wasn't her husband snoring. It was the growl of a mountain lion. That's right, a mountain lion was trapped in the crawlspace of a Monrovia home late Wednesday before being safely captured and released back into the wild by California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Thursday morning. Good luck getting to sleep tonight, Silvia.
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Idled by COVID-19, food trucks provide a tasty loophole in Ventura County
Food trucks are finding a useful niche in Ventura County in the last two months as bars try to reopen. You see, according to the county, bars, wineries and breweries can't reopen in the way restaurants can unless they also sell food. Many are calling on food trucks to park at their establishments as a clever — and yummy — workaround.
"There has absolutely been a rush of breweries and wineries that have reached out to book me," said Julius Shaifer, who launched his Shaifer's Kitchen food trailer late last year before being "shut down completely" for two months because of COVID-19.
State declares emergency to draw down budget reserves
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a budget emergency Thursday that will allow California to take nearly $8 billion from a state reserve account to help plug a large budget deficit brought on by the coronavirus.
The budget surplus California enjoyed when the year began was quickly wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic, as the state delayed tax collections, businesses suffered and spending soared to battle the virus. Now, the state faces a predicted $54.3 billion deficit.
The proposed budget would take $7.8 billion from the state's “rainy day” fund, about half of what's in it, to help plug the hole. Newsom needed to declare a budget emergency to legally tap it.
Santa Cruz County reopens beaches, 'people are not willing to be governed'
As California reported back-to-back-to-back record numbers of new coronavirus cases this week amid the continued reopening of the state, Santa Cruz County has decided to fully reopen its beaches, noting that the restrictions were becoming increasingly difficult to enforce.
The current order closed beaches from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for all activities except walking across the sand to enter the water. But residents have continued to ignore the rules, officials said.
“It’s become impossible for law enforcement to continue to enforce the closures,” Santa Cruz’s health officer, Dr. Gail Newel, said Thursday. “People are not willing to be governed anymore in that regard.”
Mistaken restaurant identity causes angst for Oakland eatery
Holy Land restaurant in Oakland has been around for 30 years as purveyors of Israeli and Middle Eastern fare. That's why owner Miri Levy was surprised by a flood of angry tweets and social media messages aimed at the eatery this week.
Turns out, a restaurant in Minnesota with the same name was being called out for some objectionable social media conduct, but angry posters confused the restaurants and sent comments to the Oakland establishment.
More Salton Sea battles, and a trip to the cinema
Salton Sea: The Imperial County Air Pollution Control District hit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Imperial Irrigation District with notices of violation for ongoing pollution at a long-stalled Salton Sea restoration project. The violations allege that the federal agency and the water district have only made sporadic attempts since 2016 to complete work at the several-hundred-acre Red Hill Bay site, "causing numerous instances of elevated levels of airborne dust."
Ventura: As calls to "defund the police" echo across the country, Ventura County has chosen not to alter its funding right now. To investigate that decision, the Ventura County Star did a nice deep dive into each of its local cities and how much each spends on policing.
And finally, a newspaper columnist took a non-essential trip to the movie theater, just to see what it was like during a pandemic. Turns out it's hard to escape into a film when you're fretting about what you're touching. Spoiler alert: It was me!
That's all for today. Stay safe. Stay cool. Stay masked.
In California is a roundup of news from across Paste BN Network newsrooms. Also contributing: The Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Associated Press, CBS-LA