Category Archives: Carmel Pine Cone

Chamber Of Commerce Trying To Bring Concorso Italiano Again

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How do we define ‘green’? Is it carbon credits and no styrofoam or is it money, money, money from gross polluters?

Remember the Melange – posh is out!
Red Ferraris On Golf Course

There is a renewed drive to bring the Concorso Italiano to Pacific Grove, nearly one year after the city council said it didn’t think the posh car event was appropriate for the town.

In November, Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce President Moe Ammar approached Concorso owner Jack Wadsworth with the idea to bring a slightly scaled-down version of the car event to the city’s municipal golf course.

“I wrote him a letter and I convinced him to [again] consider Pacific Grove,” Ammar said.

Chamber Of Commerce Trying To Bring Concorso Italiano Again

Gangs Moving In, See P.G. As Easy Target

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Graffiti Trash

“They’re moving into town,” (detective Adam Sepagan) said, citing the area of Arkwright Court, where apartments are abundant and cheap. “Unless they do something wrong and we catch them, we can’t ask them not to live here. We’d like to. It’s mostly Hispanic gangs, according to Sepagan, and while Nortenos were predominant for a while, more Surenos are arriving as of late.
“For the longest time, those people didn’t come to P.G., because they didn’t want to get caught for something like a taillight, and then be found driving a stolen car or having an outstanding warrant” Sepagan said. “But as things are getting worse throughout the county, sometimes they come here because they want to get away from the violence and everything.”

Not news. Same paper reported gangs in P.G. back in April 2005.

Don’t forget the violent robbery at Safeway

Gangs Moving In, See P.G. As Easy Target

I’d Walk A Mile With A Service Camel

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None of these, what say my service camel?

Trotters Not Allowed

Last week the New York Times reported a national trend of disabled people replacing service dogs with more exotic animals — such as monkeys, parrots and small horses.

And you don’t have to go far to find an example. One resident of Pacific Grove uses a miniature horse for stability as she moves around her home. The horse is often seen being walked around a neighborhood not far from the beach.

According to the Guide Horse Foundation, miniature horses make good service animals because “they demonstrate excellent judgment and are not easily distracted by crowds and people.”

But there is a growing debate over whether unconventional service animals such as monkeys and pigs should be allowed to cozy up to people in restaurants, stores, churches and other public places.

“Where will it end?” asked Pacific Grove Mayor Dan Cort. “Because camels could be good service animals, too.”

I’d Walk A Mile With A Service Camel

Long Lead Times At Crime Lab

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According to PGPD detective Adam Sepagan, Patrick James Ayers stole liquor from the Pacific Grove Safeway on June 19, 2008.

The suspect escaped, but the officer recovered the bottle of hard alcohol the man dropped, and police managed to lift some fingerprints from its surface, according to Sepagan.

“We submitted the prints to the Monterey County crime lab, they were able to find a match, and we were able to get him ID’ed,” he explained. Because more serious crimes take priority in the lab, months had passed before a technician had time to run the prints through the system.

Long Lead Times At Crime Lab

Lawsuit Against City In Middle School Death

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Just a few years ago drop offs were banned on the west side of Forest. Someone was thinking about the danger then.
Loading PGMS

“The drop-off/pickup area in front of Pacific Grove Middle School was set up in a dangerous location,” the claim contends.

But moving the drop-off area doesn’t mean another tragedy won’t occur, Blakely said. “An out-of-control driver on any of those streets could cause the same accident,” he said.

The Woodses are seeking at least $3 million in the claim, which was received by the city Nov. 21. The city, which has 45 days to respond, will likely deny the claim, at which point Brady said the family might file a lawsuit. “We are waiting for the city’s next move,” Brady said.

Lawsuit Against City In Middle School Death

Counterfeit Money Passed At Safeway

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Fake Money Perps

Police arrested three Seaside residents suspected of passing fake $100 bills, Pacific Grove P.D. detective Adam Sepagan said this week, while U.S. Secret Service agents are working to determine who manufactured the fraudulent notes.

According to police, 21-year-old Marquise Legaux received the counterfeit cash from 31-year-old Laura Long and then exchanged it for real money in the register at his job at the Pacific Grove Safeway. Jimmy Alexander, a 32-year-old Seaside resident who is on probation, is also accused of passing a fake $100 bill at Safeway through Legaux.

In this case, thieves used chemicals to wash the ink off of $5 bills and then overlaid them with the design from a $100 bill using high-quality printers and copiers.

Because the paper is genuine, the fake bills feel real to the touch, and the special pens used by retailers to verify the paper’s quality indicate they are real.

Counterfeit Money Passed At Safeway

Ice Cream Shoppe Owner Denies Accusing Soldiers

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The store is a shrine to the far left leaning views of the owner – what do you expect?

Ice Cream Shoppe Awning

Ozuna has a very different account of what happened that day. “Those are all lies,” he said, after reading a Monterey County Herald report of the incident.

This week, the parties told The Pine Cone very different accounts of what transpired that Veteran’s Day.

Derek Williams, who served in Iraq from November 2006 to November 2007, said that as they were leaving the shop, he heard Ozuna say he didn’t want to serve military personnel. Derek then told his wife, who confronted the shop owner.

“I turned around and said, ‘Excuse me, what did you say to us?’” Courtney Williams said. “And he said, ‘I wasn’t speaking to you, I was speaking to my customers.’”

“Semi-heated” words were then exchanged, the Williamses said.

“I kind of went off on a tangent,” said Courtney Williams, who is studying Arabic. “I said he [Ozuna] wouldn’t have his freedom if it wasn’t for my husband. It kind of hit a soft spot in me.”

At some point during the exchange, the couple said Ozuna included their daughter in the argument.

“He said we were baby killers and murderers,” Derek Williams recalled. “And that we were raising the next generation of killers.”

“I couldn’t believe this guy was attacking us in broad daylight in front of customers,” Courtney Williams said.

Ice Cream Shoppe Owner Denies Accusing Soldiers

Fire In Apartment – Cat Bed Next To Heater

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Kitten Makes Fire

They knocked the flames down quickly enough to prevent their spreading to the downstairs unit or the detached apartment to the rear, according to Gunter. No one was injured, and the occupant’s four cats also escaped unharmed.

Although they were innocent bystanders, the cats are indirectly responsible. The resident had built a plywood contraption to hold catnapping baskets in the sun room, and a piece of the wood was quite close to the electric wall heater, according to Gunter, who investigated the cause and origin of the blaze.

Fire In Apartment – Cat Bed Next To Heater

Mail Thieves Caught

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A P.G. resident was among the victims.

Officers made their first arrest Nov. 4, tracking 39-year-old Edith Gaskins down at her Seaside home, where she was hiding in the closet.

When they interviewed 33-year-old Leticia Balajadia, also of Seaside, “she tried to point a finger at all the others, but it turned out she was very involved in the operation,” Uretsky said, and she was arrested Nov. 17.

The other two, 33-year-old Warkiesha Pettis-Gulley and 40-year-old Brian Anderson, a husband and wife who live in Marina, were arrested early this month after fleeing Washington Mutual Bank.

They had entered the Seaside WaMu earlier in day but left, and a bank official issued an alert to other branches in the area, according to Carmel detective Jesse Juarez. In Carmel, Pettis-Gulley walked up to the counter with a forged check to deposit, but the teller recognized her and called police.

Mail Thieves Caught

People Come From Far And Wide To See The World’s Ugliest Xmas Tree

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Cannot disappoint the tourists from Fresno, light it up.
Ugly Tree 2006

The Pacific Grove Annual Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony will be Monday, Dec. 1, at 5 p.m. at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, at Forest and Central avenues.

Following the tree lighting, which the chamber says regularly draws people from as far away as Fresno, there will be a reception at Chautauqua Hall

UPDATE – wanted to show the tree in the day time. Do people from Fresno really think this is nice enough to travel to see?
Ugly Tree Daylight

People Come From Far And Wide To See The World’s Ugliest Xmas Tree