Today’s Big News

26 years ago, Heaven’s Gate couldn’t wait

Dateline Rancho Santa Fe. March 26, 1997. A 911 call came into the San Diego Sheriff’s Communications Center. It was treated as a prank call at first. From what turned out to be a nearby payphone, the caller said something so preposterous that dispatchers took their time in relaying the information to central command. “This is regarding a mass suicide. I can give you the address,” the…

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Heaven’s Gate coming to the big screen in blockbuster

Considering the spectacular nature of the nation’s largest mass suicide on March 26, 1997 when 21 men and 18 women wearing the same black Nike shoes, covered in purple blankets killed themselves at a rented Rancho Santa Fe estate, it seemed only a matter of time when the incident would go Hollywood.. That time has come, according to Britta DeVore of entertainment news site Collider. Vera…

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I do not carry, or sell, or handle, or trade in, or have anything to do with hubcaps

Re: Hubcaps going second time around for art at the California Center For the Arts, Escondido from April 8 to May 28… Disclaimer: I do not carry, or sell, or handle, or trade in, or have anything to do with hubcaps Let me make this perfectly clear: I am not —- repeat not —- a hubcap dealer. OK, the tussie-mussies were one thing. I mentioned…

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The Escondido Grapevine has provided factual, informative and interesting information and news since 2015. It has been our pleasure and civic duty to do this, especially considering the status of North County as a news desert given the demise of The North County Times and low coverage priority of regional corporate, for-profit media.
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Pala’s ultimate underground radio station

“March 21, 2023 is the 12th Anniversary of the first show of Mark’s Groovy Trip on Rez Radio 91.3. Join us today from 1:00-4:00PM Pacific Time for our special !2th Anniversary Show featuring songs that peaked out at the #12 position on the Billboard Hot 100. Download the RezRadio 91.3 app at Google Play or the Apple App Store for the best listening experience. You…

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What President Biden said at Rancho Santa Fe event

The White House Tuesday released a complete read-out of formal remarks made by President Biden from 6:47 p.m. to 7:25 p.m. Monday at the Rancho Santa Fe residence of tech entrepreneurs Allan and Megan Camaisa. He made those remarks during a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Grassroots Fund in which he reportedly raised $1 million. This was Biden’s final stop after a…

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Popular Posts

Why daylight saving time is unhealthy

As people in the U.S. prepare to turn their clocks ahead one hour in mid-March, I find myself bracing for the annual ritual of media stories about the disruptions to daily routines caused by switching from standard time to daylight saving time. About a third of Americans say they don’t look forward to these twice-yearly time changes. An overwhelming 63% to 16% majority would like…


Esco CBD product company sued for $300K wage fraud

In three years, James Woo racked up more than $200,000 in personal credit card debt while fronting the cost of flights, meals, hotels and trade show bookings for his employer, a CBD product company based in Escondido.  Then in 2020 the company abruptly fired him without paying him back, according to court documents. Woo filed a wage theft claim with the state and sued the…


RSF billionaire Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer secretly meets with EPA chief in effort to block Pebble mine

The campaign to block Pebble mine has netted a behind-the-scenes player — a billionaire heiress to the Cargill fortune. Records obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act shed light on a meeting in October between EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, who owns and sometimes lives at Coral Reef Ranch off Via de Santa Fe, to discuss Pebble mine, a…


California Avo Commission spotlights female farmers

In honor of International Women’s Day, March 8, the California Avocado Commission, which represents growers farming on about 50,000 acres in the state, is sharing profiles of some female avocado farmers to showcase the role of women in the industry. As with all farming, women have long been active in growing California avocados. Many California avocado growers come from multigenerational farming families, and with generational…


Editor’s Picks

Golden Door spa: How a legendary retreat made the ultimate comeback

San Marcos, California’s Golden Door spa has been restored to its former glory—which is exactly how you’ll feel when you leave. The short version of the story—how I came to be at Golden Door, the storied, ultra-luxe retreat sometimes referred to as the “Mrs. Astor of spas”—is that I have two children under the age of 5 and a demanding job that requires fair amounts…


Rain swamps San Diego, say hello to El Nino

Blame it on El Nino. After months of promises, infamous climate agitator El Niño finally formed this week, climate scientists announced Thursday.  “Weak El Niño conditions are present and are expected to continue through the spring,” the Climate Prediction Center said. El Niño is a periodic natural warming of sea water in the tropical Pacific. It is among the biggest influences on weather and climate in the United States and…


San Diego police stop black people at a rate 219 percent higher than white people

“They did what human beings looking for freedom, throughout history, have often done. They left.” These are the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson in her book, “The Warmth of Other Suns.” The book follows the story of three Black Southerners and their journey escaping racial violence — a sharecropper’s wife who left Mississippi in the 1930s for Chicago, an agricultural worker who left…


Take a look at this Kim Jong-un: Korea Day at San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum

San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum Saturday kicked off its 4th Annual Escondido Roots Series with a nod to Korea on Saturday afternoon. Soon to follow are celebrations of Korea, Mexico, Israel, Puerto Rico, Iran and Scotland. The free community event blasted away with the with the big drums of from San Diego Korean Pungmui School and Korean United Methodist Church Nanta Team. The Silver Wings…


End of emergency services era at Palomar Health Downtown Campus

Ending months of speculation, and anticipation, Palomar Health Wednesday said it would close its around-the-clock downtown Escondido emergency department on March 14. Once a major 319-bed regional medical center, the 555 E Valley Parkway hospital, now called the Kaiser Permanente Palomar Health Downtown Campus, opened its doors on Feb. 16, 1950. Handwriting has been on the wall ever since North County’s leading medical provider opened…


RSF Golf Club course looks at renovation

Acclaimed golf course architect David McClay-Kidd, creator of the original course at Oregon’s Bandon Dunes Resort, will be called upon to develop construction documents for a proposed renovation of the Rancho Santa Fe (Calif.) Golf Club course, the Rancho Santa Fe Review reported. The Rancho Santa Fe Association board approved the $165,000 expenditure to hire McClay-Kidd. The board’s October 1 vote was not a green…


Breaking News

President Biden fundraises at Rancho Santa Fe, visits San Diego region with British, Australian PMs

President Joe Biden went to an undisclosed Rancho Santa Fe location Monday evening where he met with Rep. Scott Peters and 40 guests for about 40 minutes in an effort to raise $1 million for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, sources said. This was his final stop after a daylong visit to the San Diego area Monday where he met with…

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Politics

John “Clown” Cox investigated by Humane Society for bear abuse in gubernatorial joke

Leave it to the political clown that is John Cox, laughed out of Illinois, and now debasing Rancho Santa Fe with his circus of stupidity as he pretends to run for governor — again — and definitively loses, again. Cox’s latest brush with political stupidity of the Bozo type apparently ran afoul of the authorities, the animal control authorities, that is to say. His bizarre…

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Sad tale of RSF’s Cox zombie governor run

(Editor’s Note: Rancho Santa Fe’s clown prince John Cox got laughed out of the last state gubernatorial race. He is reprising his ridiculous role in the 2021 faux recall attempt and ridiculous next race for governor, which Gov. Gavin Newsom will win easily while we, the people, have to pay for it. Cox is a joke. What else do you want to know.) Cox, a…

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Maskholes like Jim Desmond want us dead

I’ve reached the breaking point on the ideological crusade built around self-victimization over attempts to slow or stem the coronavirus. Yes, I’m a high risk individual, but that’s not the reason why I’m ranting today. I’m just one part of a much bigger picture, namely the portion of the population certain politicians think is expendable in the name of profit. The nation is in the…

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Illegitimate carpetbagger Issa couldn’t have won the 50th Cong. District. We must re-vote.

(Editor’s Note: After getting blowback from people who didn’t get it, let me explain this is complete satire aimed at showing Issa and other sedition party creeps that it’s oh so easy to turn their disingenuous lies and false arguments against them in the same way. Live by the lie and die by the lie.) We believe we did not have a fair and legitimate…

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Escondido

Most Escondido homelessness funds went to police, not homelessness programs, according to city staff report

Some $1.4 million of $2 million targeted to address homelessness in Escondido went to the city’s police department rather than homelessness services, according to a city staff report released last month. The money that specifically comes from the city’s general fund came under fire from some residents at a February 15, 2023 city council meeting, according to the Voice of San Diego. “We keep seeing…

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Surprising and Strange

26 years ago, Heaven’s Gate couldn’t wait

Dateline Rancho Santa Fe. March 26, 1997. A 911 call came into the San Diego Sheriff’s Communications Center. It was treated as a prank call at first. From what turned out to be a nearby payphone, the caller said something so preposterous that dispatchers took their time in relaying the information to central command. “This is regarding a mass suicide. I can give you the address,” the…

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Pi Day, shmiday, other numbers deserve holidays, too

March 14 is celebrated as Pi Day because the date, when written as 3/14, matches the start of the decimal expansion 3.14159… of the most famous mathematical constant. By itself, pi is simply a number, one among countless others between 3 and 4. What makes it famous is that it’s built into every circle you see – circumference equals pi times diameter – not to…

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Move over Octomom, Birch Aquarium welcomes 70 baby weedy seadragons carried to birth by proud papa

Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is celebrating the arrival of more than 70 tiny newborn Weedy Seadragons, which are incredibly difficult to breed and rear in captivity.  Only a handful of facilities have successfully hatched and reared this unique species of fish that are related to seahorses and pipefish. “This is huge for us. We’ve been working on this…

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Meet the Cosmic Ray Deflection Society of North America (RIP Also Aswell)

 (RIP CHUCK ALSTON AKA ALSO ASWELL, GRAND FOUNDER AND POOBAH OF THE COSMIC RAY DEFLECTION SOCIETY AKA KRUDZNA INK. A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, Aswell worked for many years as a chef at New Orleans. Also, a prolific artist and thinker, Aswell led the way for numerous storied events and adventures. Following a long series of health battles, he died peacefully in his sleep…

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Featured Content

Mom’s Kitchen serves slice of Vista history

A slice of Vista’s past was being served Tuesday over biscuits and gravy at Mom’s Kitchen, once knows as Allen’s Alley Cafe. While a lot has changed over the last 70 years around Vista, Mom’s Kitchen has not. So, the biscuits and gravy were flowing at the town’s oldest, continuously serving restaurant much as they have since, at least, 1950 when it was known as…

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Vick Vannucci comes back to Mother Earth

Former tennis prodigy, model and TV presenter Maria Victoria “Vick” Vannucci lived through the photograph, then figuratively died by the photograph. Former owner and chef at Normal Heights’ Pachamama Restaurant, Vannucci pursues a new socially aware image featuring her tale of personal redemption centering on giving back to the community and educating people about healthy food and animal conservation. “My story is a special story,”…

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Re-booting the past: Escondido shoe repair shop one of the few left around North County

Not a lot of us are left, Doart Shoe Repair owner Lucia Capuano says before jumping out of her lunch to wait on yet another customer. Capuano’s talking cobblers, not customers. A steady stream of the latter enter the 35-year-old fixture at 103 S Broadway, just south of the 100 block of W Grand Avenue, constantly interrupting her attempt to lunch. Not to worry, time…

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Bringing mid-20th Century modern furniture aesthetics to early 21st Century lives and homes

Applying an international twist to the American Dream, the globe-trotting French native Aymerick Rondeau, 44, now scours the world for authentic 1960s Scandinavian mid-century modern furniture, bringing it all back to his San Marcos warehouse and home. Like Cher and Oprah, the effervescent Rondeau is known by first name only as Aymerick. He followed the sun as a young man working in the hospitality industry…

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Looking back at Del’s Barber Shop

Like father like son like grandson, Del’s Barber Shop is old school and proud of it. “It’s pretty much the same old barber shop,” said Jason Engelbrecht, now large and in charge of the 4-barber shop on S. Escondido Boulevard next to Lourdes Restaurant and its famous chicken soup. “We try not to change anything.” One would be hard-pressed to find another blast from the…

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Grid and Bear It

Last but not Least

Why daylight saving time is unhealthy

As people in the U.S. prepare to turn their clocks ahead one hour in mid-March, I find myself bracing for the annual ritual of media stories about the disruptions to daily routines caused by switching from standard time to daylight saving time. About a third of Americans say they don’t look forward to these twice-yearly time changes. An overwhelming 63% to 16% majority would like…

Click Here or title to read more

Esco CBD product company sued for $300K wage fraud

In three years, James Woo racked up more than $200,000 in personal credit card debt while fronting the cost of flights, meals, hotels and trade show bookings for his employer, a CBD product company based in Escondido.  Then in 2020 the company abruptly fired him without paying him back, according to court documents. Woo filed a wage theft claim with the state and sued the…

Click Here or title to read more

RSF billionaire Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer secretly meets with EPA chief in effort to block Pebble mine

The campaign to block Pebble mine has netted a behind-the-scenes player — a billionaire heiress to the Cargill fortune. Records obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act shed light on a meeting in October between EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, who owns and sometimes lives at Coral Reef Ranch off Via de Santa Fe, to discuss Pebble mine, a…

Click Here or title to read more

California Avo Commission spotlights female farmers

In honor of International Women’s Day, March 8, the California Avocado Commission, which represents growers farming on about 50,000 acres in the state, is sharing profiles of some female avocado farmers to showcase the role of women in the industry. As with all farming, women have long been active in growing California avocados. Many California avocado growers come from multigenerational farming families, and with generational…

Click Here or title to read more

Iowa journalist learns embarrassing lesson

(Editors Note: This is a cautionary tale especially relevant to several San Diego County pseudo-media outlets who will go unnamed that run and hide with one, or no, source stories while sucking up independent journalism oxygen giving local journalism a bad name.) Hoodwinked, fooled, deceived, misled, bamboozled: those are just a few words to describe what a teenager did to a community journalist who has…

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Guess COVID is sorta over per SD County proclamation

With the County’s 3-year-long COVID-19 local emergency proclamation and local health emergency declarations, and weekly County News Center updates coming to an end, the County’s Public Health Officer reiterated a continuing message this week. The County response to the ongoing pandemic—testing, treating and vaccinating—will continue. The virus is still circulating. And people should continue to protect themselves by getting up to date with vaccinations, including…

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Lightning in the form of an ATM machine stolen by truck strikes twice at same Del Lago shopping center

Why bother stealing from an ATM machine when you can just steal the ATM machine. Who says ATM machine theft, like lightning, never strikes twice? Somebody, or somebodies, around Escondido’s Plaza Del Lago Center just east of newly renamed North County Mall has a recurring criminal fixation with this bit of advanced banditry. For yet another time, an in-store ATM at that small outdoor shopping…

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Blowing up ATM machines crime does not pay, DOJ says

Chad Lee Engel was sentenced in federal court on Thursday, Feb. 3, 2023 to 138 months in prison for blowing up ATM machines to steal the money contained inside, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California. Engel, 50, of Chula Vista, pleaded guilty in July 2022, admitting that he participated in conduct outlined in the original indictment, including his part in causing…

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