••• “The city of Solvang will not enforce the latest three-week business closure mandated by the state of California and is encouraging businesses to carry on with open doors and dining just as they have throughout the summer and fall.” While much of the stay-at-home order is misguided, it strikes me as totally reasonable that any Solvang resident who falls ill should be relegated to the back of the hospital line. You shouldn’t get to reap the benefits of community if you’re not prepared to share the sacrifice. —Santa Ynez Valley News UPDATE 12/11: Jamie says that “the city did give permission businesses to operate as usual should they choose to do so (much like other cities such as Beverly Hills and Pasadena) but everything is still closed.”
••• “The City Council narrowly passed a new ordinance Tuesday that mandates landlords pay their tenants three months’ worth of relocation costs should they evict them without just cause. […] Initially, it was only supposed to be two months’ worth of relocation costs.” —Independent
••• The Santa Barbara Police Department clarified that parking restrictions are still very much in effect during the stay-at-home order, with the exception of ones involving street-sweeping, which are paused. —Nextdoor
••• “California has reversed its decision to close playgrounds as part of the state’s new regional stay-at-home order. […] Public playgrounds, as well as playgrounds located at schools with in-person learning, can stay open.” —KSBY
••• “Twenty ‘tiny homes’ have been built in Isla Vista to provide transitional housing for the homeless in the area.” —KEYT
••• Vanity Fair has a sad story about Randy and Evi Quaid. Why this is locally relevant:
When I came upon him, Quaid […] looked slimmer than in years past and surprisingly stylish for a man on the run. “I call it ‘the Failure-to-Appear Diet,'” he said, joking about his and his wife’s not showing up for a string of court dates in Santa Barbara.
The Quaids were arrested in September of 2009 for defrauding an innkeeper, conspiracy, and burglary after skipping out on a $10,000 bill at Santa Barbara’s San Ysidro Ranch hotel; in September of 2010 they were arrested again, for residential burglary and entering a noncommercial building without consent, after squatting in a house in Montecito, California, which they had formerly owned. There was a warrant out for Evi’s arrest on the second set of charges. (The first case was resolved, with the charges against Randy dropped and Evi getting three years probation and 240 hours of community service after they settled their hotel bill.)
Evi had also been charged with resisting arrest at the Montecito house. “They hog-tied me!” she told me.
UPDATE 12/14: Evi Quaid sent me this 2015 video via Twitter as a correction to the above.
••• “Last week, the Hope Ranch solfatara rumbled awake—as it still does from time to time—and started a small, smoldering fire on a section of the bluffs about a mile west of Arroyo Burro Beach. […] Similar incidents occurred in 2019 and 2017.” Soltafaras are “naturally occurring fissures that give off sulfurous gases and steam.” —Independent
••• “Tree Removal Request Exposes Rotten Underbelly of Santa Barbara’s Appeal Process.” The story isn’t quite as titillating as that headline promises. —Independent
••• “The first deep-dive analysis of how well the network of marine protected areas ringing the Channel Islands guards against poaching has delivered decisively positive results. Illegal takings within the boundaries of the MPAs, established in 2003 after a series of long and bruising negotiations between fisherman, conservationists, and scientists, are essentially zero, the study spearheaded by Oregon State University found. It also discovered much higher rates of legal fishing at unprotected sites nearby.” —Independent
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That is not entirely true about Solvang. The city did give permission businesses to operate as usual should they choose to do so (much like other cities such as Beverly Hills and Pasadena) but everything is still closed.