Amid all the hype over the new Star Wars trailer, 83,639 of you still took the time to read Noozhawk this past week. May the force be with you.
1. Haggen to Make Its Presence Known as 6 Local Grocery Stores Embark on Rebranding, Conversion
The Vons market in Goleta’s Fairview Shopping Center will undergo an almost overnight transformation to the Haggen brand this weekend, the first such conversion of the six Santa Barbara County markets purchased by the Bellingham, Wash.-based chain.
As our Gina Potthoff first reported, the Vons at 175 N. Fairview Ave. will close at 6 p.m. April 19 and reopen the afternoon of April 21 as a Haggen.
By late June, five other local markets — Albertsons stores at 1500 N. H St. in Lompoc and 2010 Cliff Drive and 3943 State St. in Santa Barbara, and Vons stores at 850 Linden Ave. in Carpinteria and 163 S. Turnpike Road in Santa Barbara — will have gotten the same treatment.
Earlier this year, Albertsons completed its purchase of Safeway, which owns Vons, and 168 of the merged company’s stores needed to be divested as part of the Federal Trade Commission approval. Haggen purchased 146 of them in California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
2. Ken Macdonald: Why Santa Barbara’s Coastline Is Rotated, and How It Matters in Surprising Ways
Capt. David Bacon, one of Noozhawk’s longtime columnists, recently wrote about the sometimes baffling characteristics of the Santa Barbara coastline.
His musings — particularly as they relate to turned-around tourists and newcomers — inspired Ken Macdonald, one of Noozhawk’s newest columnists, to follow up with a first-rate primer on how our local landscape, and seascape, came to be.
Even for those of us who, when we look out to sea from shore, expect to see the sun setting to the right, Ken’s explanation is a fascinating journey into the way-back past of geophysics.
If you’re one of the few who haven’t yet read it, once you do you’ll never look at our coastline and mountains the same way again.
Meanwhile, although Ken has sea “cred” as an oceanographer and professor emeritus in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Earth Science, one detail I can appreciate more than most is that he spells his name correctly. #scotlandforever
3. Mountain Biker Injured in 200-Foot Plunge Off San Ysidro Trail Above Montecito
A mountain biker riding on the San Ysidro Trail above Montecito was seriously injured April 11 when he fell 200 feet down the mountainside.
The man was rescued about an hour after his crash, thanks to a multiagency effort involving the Santa Barbara County, Montecito and Santa Barbara fire departments; the U.S. Forest Service; the sheriff’s Search & Rescue Team; and American Medical Response.
County firefighter Paul Christensen said the man, whose name was not disclosed, was airlifted to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital by a county helicopter.
4. Former News-Press Photographer Sues Paper for Firing Him After He Complained of Mold
I have to give that newspaper credit: It has broken the mold in so many different ways.
For the record, my friend, Mike Eliason, has been an occasional contributing photographer to Noozhawk over the last year. We’re proud to have him.
5. Junior League of Santa Barbara Celebrates 90th Anniversary While Leaving a Legacy
For 90 years now, the Junior League of Santa Barbara has been serving our community, often taking a leadership role in meeting an acute challenge identified by its members.
At the nonprofit JLSB’s Leaving a Legacy Gala on April 11 at the Coral Casino Beach & Cabana Club, the league announced its latest initiative.
“I am excited to say that the Junior League of Santa Barbara’s new focus area … is to prevent injustice to women through human trafficking and a concentration on foster youth who are especially susceptible to this abuse,” gala co-chairwoman Danielle Hazarian told our Rochelle Rose.
As difficult as it may be to accept that human trafficking actually happens here in our beautiful paradise, the ugly truth is that it does — and apparently in numbers that are unfathomable. I salute the Junior League for taking up the cause, and for recognizing that foster children are at particular risk.
Noozhawk is proud to be partnering with the Junior League of Santa Barbara as it celebrates its first 90 years. Theirs is a stand-up example we look forward to following for the next 90.
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Bill Macfadyen’s Story of the Week, from my peripatetic tour of the World Wide Web: Armadillo to Blame after Georgia Man Wounds Mother-in-Law. You can’t trust armadillos; they have shifty eyes.
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In politics, isn’t it the journalists who always say a presidential campaign is a marathon, not a sprint? Make sure your sound is on.
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— Bill Macfadyen is Noozhawk’s founder and publisher. Contact him at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com, follow him on Twitter: @noozhawk, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.