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Northern Exposure
SOMETHING FISHY: Carlsbad resident John “Mac” Weakley was charged up when he hauled a 25-pound bass out of Lake Dixon in Escondido, reportedly the biggest largemouth bass ever caught anywhere. But his smile turned to a frown when he saw the photo he had taken of his fish emblazoned on a T-shirt for sale at the Dixon Lake bait shop, along with the slogan “You want her? We’ve got her. Dixon Lake!” Weakley raised a stink, maintaining the rights to the photo belong to him. His lawyer issued a formal claim for damages to the city, which was denied. Now Weakley’s lawyer, Ken A. Cariffe, says he’s trying to figure out how much money the city made off the shirts before he decides what to do next. The issue to Weakley really isn’t money, Cariffe says: “He’s upset because they didn’t ask him [if they could use the photo], and at the point they decided to make it a commercial venture, they overstepped boundaries.”
HOME, SORROWFUL HOME: It’s been about 30 years since suburbia crept into North County and the region mushroomed with tract homes. Residents of some of the older neighborhoods, built in the late 1970s, note a worrisome trend: a slow but steady increase in the number of properties that have fallen to waste. An informal survey of homes in a northeast Carlsbad neighborhood found at least one such property per block, including one particularly decrepit house blanketed by weeds and junk cars. Will Foss, building and code-enforcement manager for the city of Carlsbad, says laws are on the books regarding upkeep and maintenance, and he’d be more than happy to investigate any complaints——“but I’m not sure we’ve had any,” he says. “That’s really the first step.” One neighbor of a junk home says she’s groused a lot to other neighbors, but no one’s ever called the city.
LEGACY OF A NAME: The closing of the Wgasa Bush Line monorail at the San Diego Wild Animal Park has left visitors critical of its replacement, a shorter tram ride that criss-crosses the interior of the park rather than following its perimeter. “The Wild Animal Park is rapidly deteriorating into an amusement park,” writes one blogger. “The new Journey into Africa tour is boring, and the tour vehicles and paved highway are an eyesore.” Meanwhile, the legend about the Wgasa’s name——long rumored to be an acronym for “Who Gives a S____ Anyway”——has made it onto Snopes.com, the famed urban-legend debunking site. Turns out the legend is true, according to Snopes. “We credit this one as true because, frankly, there is no other explanation,” Snopes says. Legend has it that when the park opened in 1972, staffers were looking for an African-sounding name, and after much debate, one expressed his frustration by writing “WGASA” at the bottom of a memo, which zoo officials mistakenly took as a serious suggestion.
FOR THE BIRDS: Forget Carlsbad’s famed Flower Fields, miles of pristine beaches and pricey new golf course. The coastal town’s latest pitch for tourists, in the form of a press release from the Carlsbad Convention & Visitors Bureau, plays up its popularity among the bird-watcher set. “Fall is the season to take a break from city life, suburban mania and Saturday morning soccer practice,” it says. “Let your wild side take charge and come to Carlsbad, on San Diego’s beautiful North Coast, when birding is at its best.” Birders are directed to the Batiquitos Lagoon, where “throughout the year at least 185 species of birds have been spotted.”
HOT DRAM! The scandal of the summer was a new sandal from Reef called the Dram, a pricey ($45) flip-flop in which the heels contain a secret compartment that can hold 1 ounce of liquid in a mini-canteen that opens with a key. The shoe, whose very name is slang for a shot of alcohol, sells with a metal flask and funnel. A rash of Florida schools banned the Dram because it makes it easy for students to smuggle in alcohol; here in North County, Hansen’s Surf Shop in Encinitas stopped selling the Dram, although it is still available on the shop’s Web site. A clerk who gave her name only as Wendy says owners pulled the sandal after hearing news reports about the controversy. “We didn’t want any problems,” she says.
CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK: Legoland may no longer be owned by the Lego Group, but the world’s sixth-largest toymaker’s ties to Carlsbad have not been cut completely. The Danish company has licensed a portfolio of microprocessor patents from Patriotic Scientific, an intellectual-property licensing company headquartered in Carlsbad, for use in its interactive toys. Says Patriotic Scientific CEO Jim Turley: “Coincidentally, our company’s headquarters is across the street from Legoland, so Lego is near to us in the literal sense as well.”
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