Who says you need bikinis and beer to draw a big crowd to a Santa Barbara County beach?
It wasn't quite Floatopia but hundreds of Carpinterians showed up at "the world's safest beach" on Saturday, some of them on surf boards, kayaks and rafts, as opponents of Venoco staged a Paddle Out Against Paredon. Although being outspent the opponents are trying to defeat Venoco's Measure J, a ballot initiative in the City of Carpinteria, which would exempt Venoco from the city's industrial development and environmental rules in the oil company's effort to construct a 140-foot drill rig on the city's bluffs.
With Venoco spending so lavishly to get the measure passed, some people are wondering, what will Venoco try next in order to insure that Measure J gets passed? My guess, bikinis and beer.
Acting DA Ann Bramsen thinks the debates between Joyce Dudley and Josh Lynn, the two people vying to become the next DA are not a good thing.
She must be the only one who thinks so.
No one I've talked to thinks that less debate between the candidates serves the purpose of helping voters make an informed choice.
Both candidates will appear tonight at the downtown library in a forum sponsored by the County Bar Foundation. However, it will not be a debate format.
And with most members of the DA's office attending last Friday's memorial service in Santa Maria for former DA Christie Stanley, who was covering the courts in Santa Barbara? One of the prosecutors staying behind was Dudley, who did not attend Stanley's memorial. It's not known whether Dudley volunteered to stay behind or was assigned to do so. In any event, last Friday was Dudley's last day at work until after the election. She is taking the month of May, and then some, off to campaign.
Reliable, albeit bashful, sources tell me that John Palminteri is returning to work at KEYT today for the first time since the TV van he was a passenger in rolled over on the freeway last Wednesday.
Thought this story, which appeared in Chris Erskine's column in yesterday's LA Times, about the Short Stop, an L.A. bar which used to cater to cops, was worth repeating.
In 1983, a poor sap by the name of Carl Blackwell wandered through the door of the Short Stop, pretended his pocket comb was a gun, and robbed the bartender while a bunch of cops looked on. When Blackwell fled, one of them fired four rounds, dropping the robber on the sidewalk for good . . . A sign in the bar still reads: Use a Comb, Go to Heaven.
