PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID ENCINITAS, CA 92024 PERMIT NO. 94
THE COAST NEWS
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VOL. 37, N0. 52
Street dining stays
SAN MARCOS -NEWS
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Pioneering VISTA NEWS student-athletes in the San Dieguito Union High School District shared their experience competing in the inaugural girls flag football season. Story on 12. RANCHO
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Shop owners split over parking impacts By Abigail Sourwine
ENCINITAS — The Encinitas City Council on Dec. 20 agreed to a two-year extension of the city’s temporary outdoor dining provisions and initiated steps to develop a permanent ordinance, dealing a blow to downtown retailers hoping to regain parking spots along Coast Highway 101. The council voted 4-1, with Councilmember Bruce Ehlers opposed, to extend outdoor dining to July 2026 and directed staff to develop an ordinance that would permanently allow eateries to use the public roadway and private parking lots for restaurant seating. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities across California initiated temporary emergency relief measures to assist restaurants lanRaul Villamar guishing amidst Business owner statewide health orders prohibiting indoor dining. Since June 2020, the city of Encinitas has issued temporary encroachment permits allowing local restaurants to utilize public rights-of-way for outdoor dining. In April 2022, the council voted to extend the emergency relief measures for another 18 months. But downtown shopowners have been divided over whether to keep the outdoor dining spaces protected by large orange barricades or return to pre-pandemic conditions. Raul Villamar, owner of Encinitas Barber Shop, has long advocated for returning public parking spots along the roadway to help non-restaurant businesses downtown. According to Villamar, businesses are losing revenue from the lack of parking. “We’ve been asking for this to be
“I’m losing money. We have cars parked on the sidewalk because we can’t find parking.”
TURN TO DINING ON 5
Dec. 29, 2023
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San Dieguito Academy sophomore Kira Sage. Photo by Rudy Schmoke
Fire official faces harassment lawsuit By Laura Place
Top 1o wines of ’23 Taste of Wine and Food curated a list featuring the year’s best vino. 17
97.3 The Fan fires Kentera Fans outraged over radio station’s dismissal of beloved “coach.” 13
VISTA — A former employee of the Vista Fire Department has filed a lawsuit alleging that she was sexually harassed by a current battalion fire chief and faced retaliation for reporting her concerns. In a complaint filed in August in Vista Superior Court, Karina Wakefield, who worked in the department as a fire inspector from fall 2021 to fall 2022, detailed what she said were inappropriate conversations and physical contact initiated by Battalion Chief Samuel Craig over several months in 2022. Wakefield said Craig made her extremely uncomfortable by texting her constantly, kissing her on the head in his office and in front of others, and occasionally sharing explicit information about his sex life. The lawsuit also names the city of Vista and Deputy Fire Chief Craig Usher, who
Wakefield said failed to support her when she filed an HR complaint about Samuel Craig’s behavior and contributed to a hostile work environment. “People in general shouldn’t have to go through what Ms. Wakefield went through, especially working at a public entity like this. This should be a safe place for employees,” said Nicole Gilanians, Wakef ield’s CRAIG attorney. While the city did investigate Wakfield’s complaint in fall 2022, officials ultimately claimed there was not enough evidence to indicate that Craig had sexually harassed Wakefield. A findings report from November 2022 said that the two appeared to have TURN TO HARASSMENT ON 21
FOR NOW, a majority of short-term vacation rentals are protected from the city’s ban on new non-hosted rentals. Photo by Richard Miller
Oceanside limits short-term rentals By Samantha Nelson
OCEANSIDE — The city has banned any new non-hosted, short-term vacation rentals in non-coastal neighborhoods and is looking to expand the embargo to include most residential areas, including homes near the beach. On Dec. 20, the City Council approved staff’s recommendation to ban short-term vacation rentals in areas outside of the city’s designated coastal zone with a few changes, limiting the ban to only new non-hosted rentals — when no owner or tenant occupies the space — and rentals in residentially zoned arTURN TO RENTALS ON 7
HAPPY NEW YEAR! from your friends at the Coast News Group “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”
- Edith Lovejoy Pierce