Coastal Carlsbad Crunch

URBAN FLIGHT: While its population booms with well-heeled yuppies living in pricy tract homes, Carlsbad’s quaint downtown, centered on State Street between Carlsbad Village Drive and Grand Avenue, isn’t sharing the spoils. Foot traffic has, in fact, decreased in recent years, prompting the chamber of commerce and other civic groups to shell out $100,000 for a consultant to study what can be done. Among the proposals being floated: raising the coastal-zone height limit from 35 to 65 feet and building a parking structure by the train station. Bill Ostrie, president of the Carlsbad Village Business Association and owner of Carlsbad Village Art & Antique Mall, attributes the decline to new shopping centers to the south, like The Forum. “Downtown is a village of specialty shops,” he says, “and The Forum is a shopping center of specialty shops.”

WHAT’S FOR SALE? In the newer, eastern part of town, a slowdown in the housing market is making some sellers increasingly desperate. On a recent Saturday, amid a cluster of “FOR SALE” signs at Carlsbad Village Drive and Pontiac Avenue, there was a hand-lettered, yellow sign that read, cryptically, “SFD SEEKING MATE.” Farther down Pontiac, a second sign said, “SFD, MALE OR FEMALE—OR BOTH.” Just when thoughts of a randy single female divorcée with a willingness to experiment danced through our heads, a third sign, in front of a single-family dwelling, said simply, “FOR SALE BY OWNER.” . . . And then there was this hard sell in The San Diego Union-Tribune classifieds for an Oceanside home that promised “free wine-tasting, cheese, food.”

SUPERSIZE THIS: The big issue these days in Solana Beach is people building oversize houses out of sync with surrounding homes, particularly in the older part of town west of I-5. The city council, hoping to solve the problem by instituting size restrictions based on lot square footage, actually made matters worse by mistakenly allowing owners of small lots to build bigger houses than owners of larger lots. According to the Residential Mansionization Ordinance, an owner of a 6,000-square-foot lot could build a house up to 3,000 square feet, but the owner of a 20,000-square-foot lot could only build a 1,000-square-foot home. It took an emergency session of the city council to iron things out days before the new law took effect October 13— but then a citizens group gathered enough signatures to suspend the law pending a referendum. Stay tuned.

THE BUSH TWINS REDUX: MySpace pages for Congressman Brian Bilbray’s son Patrick and daughter Briana were taken down after the political blog site Wonkette! posted links and several photos of the two clowning around with friends and alcohol. “We hereby retroactively endorse Brian Bilbray for the seat he already won,” said the posting. “It’ll take a big man to fill the shoes of Duke Cunningham, entertainment-wise, but Bilbray may be up to the challenge. His kids certainly are . . .” Wonkette’s tag line, appropriately enough, is “Politics for people with dirty minds.” Says Bilbray aide Kurt Bardella: “This has nothing to do with the Congressman. It’s a family issue that’s been dealt with internally. In the good old days, it used to be ‘The candidate is fair game, but leave the family out.’ All it does is bring unnecessary judgment and ridicule on two kids, and at the end of the day, where does that get anybody?”

SKATE CITY: Carlsbad skateboard sensation Kenny Hoyle is rapidly making a name for himself as the next Tony Hawk, who also hails from C-bad. Since summer, he’s been prominently featured in Skateboarder, Slap and Transworld magazines, and one of his six video clips on You- Tube has drawn more than 10,000 views. Mom Karen is a fifthgrade teacher at St. Patrick Parish School.

BUCK-PASSING: The city council race in Escondido drew chuckles when some of the biggest contributors turned out to be past,present or would-be officeholders. Councilman Sam Abed gave money to fellow Councilmember Marie Waldron and her opponent, businessman Dick Daniels. Mayoral candidate Tom D’Agosta gave money to council candidate Olga Diaz. Abed gave money to Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler. And former mayor and councilmember James Rady gave money to Pfeiler and council candidate Darol Caster. Bigger laugh: Financial disclosure statements show council candidate Carmen Miranda (!) received donations totaling just $75, plus a $2,580 loan from her husband. She spent a good chunk of that money on clothes for her campaign. Presumably including some outrageous hats.

BUTTONING UP: Legendary comic Bob Newhart is coming to North County for a January 13 appearance at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. But fans of his top-rated sitcoms might find his button-down shtick a little dated. At an appearance in Century City last year, Newhart’s routine included several jokes that might have got laughs in the ’60s but were met with stony silence in today’s politically correct environment—including a gag about a Mexican airline on which flight attendants mistook the oxygen masks for piñatas.

PASSAGES: While the fifth anniversary of 9/11 was marked by much media attention and two hit movies (including Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center), another five-year anniversary passed with little notice: the brutal murder of 84-year-old Gladys Conrad, a retired psychiatrist living in the posh Carlsbad by the Sea retirement community. Her body was found in the bedroom of her apartment on September 1, 2001. She had been beaten, raped and strangled. The murder caused a brief sensation in the local press, then disappeared when terrorists struck the Trade Center and the Pentagon. Five years later, the case grows ever colder.

North County tips? News? Gossip? Thomas K. Arnold can be reached at tkarnold@sandiegomag.com.

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