dan weisman

Featured, History, The World August 10, 2021

Local ironworker Paul Pursley spent 10 weeks at Ground Zero following Sept. 11

Sept. 11, 2001: Local ironworker Paul Pursley spent 10 weeks at “Ground Zero” following the terrorist attack. His major complaint in the years following concerned his inability to get correct, and affordable, treatment due to the costs involved, costs that Congress finally agreed to add funding to the 9/11 First Responders fund almost 18 years later. “Ironworkers worked every day,” Pursley said. “We went on 12-hour shifts…

History, Media, North County, The World August 8, 2021

Sending in the llamas and clowns on 9/11

Sept. 10, 2001 was pretty much like any other day. That is to say honored only in its passing, don’t remember what happened. Sept. 11, 2001, as we all know, was a day seared in our personal and national memories like few others. Don’t know when the carnage began, but at my Del Dios home phones started ringing way too early in the morning and…

North County, Tourism, Travel, Valley Center August 5, 2021

Pala Store at the end of the road

Pala Store may be a hundred yards away from Pala Casino Spa & Resort, but it feels like a creature from another planet. It is, too, for this store lives in a parallel universe, both in space and time. At 3000 Pala Mission Road, the store that has served as focal point for nearly eight decades was, and remains, the only store from Pala at…

The Grapevine August 3, 2021

LION spotlight: Escondido Grapevine

Q&A with LION member Dan Weisman, publisher of the Escondido Grapevine in California. For more visit LION Publishers. By Matt DeRienzo | Jun. 2, 2017 1. When did your site launch, what geography does it cover and why was it founded? We launched the site in October 2015, covering the communities of Escondido, San Marcos, Valley Center, and surrounding areas in San Diego County. The site also…

Editorial, Featured, San Marcos, San Marcos City Government June 28, 2021

San Marcos city officials lay litigious siege to valued and historic community resource

They say you can’t fight city hall, but what happens when city hall fights you? And for dubious reasons to say the least. “I don’t understand why the city of San Marcos is doing this to me,” said longtime Twin Oaks animal rescue and ranch center owner Shera Sandwell, walking among her horses and community-friendly 10-acre open space this week. “I have been providing, and…

Rancho Santa Fe, Surprising and Strange, The World June 25, 2021

24 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…

WSA, the World Shoe Association trade show

Featured, Lifestyle/Society, Rancho Santa Fe June 18, 2021

Robynn Nussbaum and The Shoe Lounge

Robynn Nussbaum put her heart and soul into The Shoe Lounge. It was a small, yet elegant, haute couture footwear and accessory store she opened at Del Rayo Plaza across from Fairbanks Country Club. An avid tri-athlete and marathon runner with three young children and four step-children, the 44-year-old Rancho Santa Fe resident had a passion for shoes. She dreamed for years of opening an…

Baseball, Business, Community, Dean Weissmann presents, Food, Rancho Santa Fe, Restaurants June 13, 2021

Holy Cow! Harry Caray’s Pantry ghost

Choices for “Take out” in downtown Rancho Santa Fe. The Bistro…Owner / Chef Mozy Jahanguiri, who has run restaurants in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Dallas, has opened The Rancho Santa Fe Bistro in the space formerly occupied by The Pantry on Paseo Delicias. Mozy has prepared a menu that offers a wide variety of healthy smoothies and juices, along with bistro favorites including grass fed sirloin burgers,…

Escondido, Featured, Media, News, North County, Valley Center June 3, 2021

Escondido militia training center under fire

Escondido residents are up in arms over what they say is a non-permitted 22-acre paramilitary tactical shooting range operated by the so-called Freedom Fighters Foundation (FFF) at the San Pasqual Valley, just north of Escondido. “Our neighborhoods in Escondido have been pleading with the government for over a decade to rid our community of the Freedom Fighters Foundation’s non-permitted, para-military tactical shooting range,” neighbors said…