In her article “Businesses, Customers Impacted by Rising Meat Prices”(GT, 9/3) Johanna Miller discusses the adverse effect Covid-19 is having on local meat production. While Covid-19 caused a surge in price increase in meat, as well as almost everything over the last (almost) two years, the prices of meat have been declining for years. Meat consumption began dropping in the late 1970s due to scientific research pointing to long-term health issues, such as heart disease, diabetes, pneumonia, etc. That being said, the consumption of plant-based meats has increased 27% in the last year. The cost of meat production is also much higher than its plant-based counterparts. As someone who has worked as a manager in a local grocery store with a full butcher counter, I’ve seen all these factors aid in the cost of meat, particularly beef, skyrocketing.
While Covid did have a negative impact on the production, distribution and sales of meat in the United States, claiming that the coronavirus is the sole factor causing prices to increase in the meat industry is a bit of a stretch. I think this article would be much more beneficial to the general public if these areas were taken into consideration.
Jennifer Scully
Santa Cruz
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Last December, we hit pause on our admittedly rather acidic tradition of Year in Review issues. “This year has been brutal enough,” we told each other. “Let’s do something really positive and then get back to skewering everything that needs to be skewered after we have the fantastic year that 2021 is no doubt going to be!”
Well, in case you didn’t hear, 2021 turned out significantly less fantastic than projected. In fact, for a lot of people, it sucked nearly as much as 2020. This time, however, it was clear to us that we need to get back to calling out the worst and weirdest things our pandemic-addled brains were able to recall from this year. Coping mechanism? Straight-up delirium? Whatever it is, we hope we’re able to give you a chuckle or two over the things that bobbled our heads.
On the flipside of all this nonsense, however, I am so happy to report that we reached our $900,000 Santa Cruz Gives goal over the Christmas weekend. It’s incredible! As I write this, we’re at $915,000, and I’m wondering how close we can get to raising a million dollars for these remarkable nonprofits by Friday at midnight, when the campaign ends. If you haven’t donated yet, please go to santacruzgives.org. We’ll all be watching that leaderboard as the ball drops on 2021. Happy New Year!
“City Councilwoman Rebecca Garcia says that there is a need for a warming center in Watsonville… Thanks to federal and state funding related to the pandemic, the county provided several shelters for homeless individuals last year, but the city chose not to offer one this year because it did not have the staff or resources to maintain it, Garcia says.”
I am only quoting Ms. Garcia, not criticizing her. Why couldn’t some of the homeless [be] trained as part of the staff to maintain the shelter(s)? As for resources, have you considered asking your community to help, in the form of monetary donations, which of course would be well documented as to their use? People will help if they are asked, and if they are given some accountability from the City.
— Sylvia Lazo
Re: Redistricting
The proposed California Redistricting Commission map
https://www.wedrawthelinesca.org/map_viewer cuts Santa Cruz County in half. Watsonville will be put in the same district as downtown San Jose! This makes no sense. This will dilute agricultural and farmworker interests and reduce our general community’s representation.
Santa Cruz County should remain in the coastal region. Utilizing the natural boundaries of the county line along the mountains is an obvious, intelligent boundary allowing the district to remain compact and contiguous.
In the proposed redistricting, Pajaro Valley will be a part of Silicon Valley, which does not know or care about our local needs and concerns. This adversely affects our representation to the federal government and will remain in effect for a decade.
Thank you so much for critically important help on this issue.
— Sally-Christine Rodgers
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GOOD IDEA
SOME BUNNY TO LOVE
The cold, stormy weather this past week has us feeling like cozying up, and what better to cozy up to than a soft rabbit? The Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter is making their rabbits available for adoption for $22 until the end February. There will also be a Winter Wonderland rabbit adoption event on Saturday, Jan. 15, from noon-2pm, with tea and treats. For more information, visit scanimalshelter.org.
GOOD WORK
FIRST LOOKER
The Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, the first public museum in Santa Cruz, is celebrating 116 years of serving the community. The museum connects people with nature and science, showing exhibits focused on the natural and cultural history of Santa Cruz County. In the past year, the museum provided virtual lessons about nature to 3,185 students, and had 3,022 people visit while the museum was open.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.”
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times—here are the power grabs,dumb crimes, animal attacks andgeneral assaults on common sense that made 2021 weird
JANUARY
NOT WHAT THEY MEANT WHEN THEY SAID ‘RETURN TO IN-PERSON LEARNING’
In 1999, Drew Barrymore set our hearts a-flutter as 25-year-old Josie Geller, who’d never been kissed when she snuck back into high school on a local newspaper assignment. Could the story of “Grossie” Josie’s adorable shenanigans be what inspired 27-year-old Michael Mortimer to break into Watsonville High on Jan. 1? No! Not at all! You see, while Josie sought only personal transformation and dem good smooches, Mortimer was there to steal $2,000 worth of laptops and equipment. He was charged with felony burglary and booked into Santa Cruz County Jail. Josie, meanwhile, was voted prom queen, waited for Sam in the middle of the baseball field, and completely avoided jail time for her shenanigans, but she did have to go on several dozen first dates with Adam Sandler, which is definitely worse.
I HAVE A VERY REAL EXPLANATION FOR WHY I’M LATE—BUT FIRST, MAY I INTEREST YOU IN A BUCKET OF UNPASTEURIZED MILK?
A bunch of cows wandering around Highway 1 slowed down motorists one January morning, even blocking traffic. Now, nothing chaps our hide more than rubbernecking, but when it comes to farm animals, we’ll happily mooooove over for a closer look at confused creatures who have simply lost their way. After all, to stare is human; to forget, bovine.
NOTHING MUCH, WHAT’S COUP WITH YOU?
American legislators like Congressmember Jimmy Panetta have shown great concern for the political instability in El Salvador. But in a surprising turn, after rage-drunk looters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Salvadoran lawmakers sent Panetta a letter saying, in part, “You’re just like us.” Panetta took the note as a cautionary warning about the threats to democracy in the free world that we all must resist together. He failed to see it for what it really was: a sick burn.
FEBRUARY
IS THERE A PROBLEM, OFFICER? BESIDES YOUR LACK OF METER AND RHYTHM, I MEAN
Former SCPD Chief Andrew Mills posted what he rather optimistically called a “poem” on his website in February to honor fallen Santa Cruz officers Loran Baker and Elizabeth Butler on the eighth anniversary of their tragic deaths. We don’t pretend to be poetry scholars, but we couldn’t help but notice that “Walking Point”—penned by Lieutenant John Morrison, SDPD (ret.)—is not so much lyrical verse as an angry, testosterone-fueled tirade: “You can’t race cars without crashes, you can’t dig mines without cave-ins, and you sure as hell can’t send cops out into the streets of a violent society without violent deaths!” reads this collection of words, as if ripped off from the back cover of a hardboiled and eerily dated Mickey Spillane paperback. “You can’t be a cop because you didn’t get some other job. You can only be a cop because you want it!” he also asserts, as you wonder in vain why he is continuing to shout at you. Can we maybe just defund the lit department of the police?
YOU CAN’T SPELL ‘NAMASTE’ WITHOUT ‘AAAAAAAAAAAA!’
What would inspire a yoga studio/tea lounge proprietor to assist in attempting to overthrow the U.S. government by force? Specifically, what motivated Mariposa Castro—former owner of Mariposa Yoga Studio & Tea Lounge in Gilroy—to partake in the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C.? In the social media posts that the FBI used to immediately identify her, Castro is wearing warpaint and drugstore Native American garb, and clutching a homemade “Who’s Your Daddy” sign featuring an image of former President Donald Trump surrounded by hearts. She made her first court appearance on Feb. 16, and though she initially pled not guilty to charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct in a capital building, among other counts, the video footage that Castro shot of herself climbing through a Capitol building window while shouting, “This is war!” and “We’re in! We got inside the Capitol!” probably made it inevitable that she’d take a plea deal, which she did in November. Castro is set to be sentenced in February of 2022, possibly while in Dejected Warrior Pose or Downward Facing Hard Time.
MARCH
I HERD THIS WOULD BE OVER BY NOW
In March, as we neared the one-year anniversary of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, an unexpected glimmer of hope emerged from a virtual press conference with Santa Cruz County health officials: the county would reach some level of herd immunity by late spring. At the time, the vast majority of the county’s older adults had received their first vaccine, and a third of people 16 and older had also had their first shot. The belief was that there would soon be enough vaccines to go around for every person in the county, and that we would be largely out of the pandemic by late 2021. And we all lived happily ever after! *screams into pillow*
YOU SAY ‘GENOCIDAL MURDERER,’ I SAY ‘AVERAGE DUDE JUST TRYING TO GET ALONG IN THE 16TH CENTURY’
To say that Cabrillo College’s name-change committee got off on the wrong foot would be like saying the school’s namesake had a few issues with cruelty and exploitation. In the committee’s first public meeting, keynote speaker Iris Engstrand, a historian, offered a fanciful whitewash of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s dossier that would have been right at home in one of the school’s creative writing classes. As a brief refresher, Cabrillo got his name on the building by being the first European to explore California, when he sailed along the coastline in 1542 in service of the Spanish monarchy. It’s the other stuff he did along the way—genocide, sex trafficking and slave trading—that prompted many locals to call for the removal of his name from the school. Engstrand, a professor emerita at the University of San Diego, argued among other things that sex trafficking in the 16th century was not a crime, but an accepted fact of life. “Cabrillo was a man of his times, not ours,” she said. Just a few days later, after a torrential storm of pushback, President Matt Wetstein sent out a letter rejecting Engstrand’s presentation, stating that it presented Cabrillo “through a lens of white supremacy and Eurocentrism.” The name-change committee is expected to present its recommendations this spring.
APRIL
WE DON’T KNOW WHO TO TRUSTEE
In April, a group called Restore Trust PVUSD launched a campaign to recall Georgia Acosta, the president of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees. Acosta was at the center of one of the weirdest scandals of the year in Santa Cruz County, after she unceremoniously and without discussion led an effort to fire Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez in a 4-3 vote in January. The backlash was swift and fierce, as Acosta was slammed relentlessly throughout 10 hours of public comment for what was widely viewed as her own personal coup attempt. Even actor Edward James Olmos filmed a video to protest Rodriguez’s removal. Acosta made the most of her heel turn, with antics like continually protesting the reading of public comment and hiring an outside lawyer to sit in on the Jan. 29 meeting without board approval. None of this stopped the board from reversing the decision a week later, restoring Rodriguez to her post, and then censuring Acosta in March. The recall fizzled in September; Acosta called the effort a witch hunt, despite the fact that she has never bothered to explain her motivation for attempting Rodriguez’s ouster in the first place.
VAMPIRES MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER
Shuttered at the outset of the pandemic, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk reopened in April, to the delight and relief of fun-seekers who no doubt found the ups and downs of the Boardwalk’s historic Giant Dipper roller coaster the perfect metaphor for the fluctuating crowd-size restrictions and on-again, off-again mask mandates of pandemic life. Or just wanted to drown their sorrows in deep-fried Twinkies.
MAY
THROW IN JEFF ROSS AND SETH MACFARLANE DISHING OUT SOME BORDERLINE RACIST JOKES AND YOU’VE GOT YOURSELF A SIX-EPISODE DEAL
The Watsonville City Council definitely didn’t know what it was in for when it held a study session on May 11 to address complaints that had been lodged with the city manager’s office about food trucks. You see, we the people will put up with a lot from our elected leaders, but The Man better keep his damn hands off our curries, churros, tacos and curried churro tacos! In a delicious turn of events, the forum turned into an hour-long roast of the City Council that featured nonprofit leaders, food truck vendors and previous Watsonville elected officials sounding off about the council’s perceived persecution of the city’s mobile delectables. With these kinds of fireworks on the table, be sure to watch for the upcoming Comedy Central Presents: The Watsonville Friars Club Roast of Jimmy Dutra.
CUCKOO OVER CHOO-CHOO
The bizarrely vitriolic dispute surrounding the Rail Trail came to a head this year when the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission did not approve a much-awaited business plan for a passenger rail line along the 32-mile stretch from Davenport to Pajaro. The 6-6 deadlock sent the county’s politicians into a tizzy. Watsonville and Santa Cruz city councils both passed resolutions supporting the plan, supporters and detractors cranked up the Facebook-fueled back-and-forth, and the commission once again discussed the item in a tension-packed five-hour virtual meeting attended by some 300 people. Ultimately, though, the RTC chose not to bring the business plan back for another vote after commissioners agreed that the county was on the verge of going full-on Squid Game over this freaking train. The decision to sideline the item did not kill plans to build a passenger rail system; a countywide measure that seeks to fast-track the construction of an interim trail on the rail line will likely be on the June 7, 2022 ballot.
JUNE
LOCAL RESIDENT: VANDALISM LOOKS GOOD, KEEP IT UP!
When Santa Cruz County installed improved bike lanes to Pleasure Point, it appeared to be a step in the right direction for preventing people from getting hurt and killed by cars. Then, some locals kept vandalizing them. One retiree defended this trend, telling a Lookout Local reporter, “People are very protective of the Point, people are very protective of their neighborhood. People don’t like gentrification and [this] is definitely gentrification.” Oh, dang, thanks for the history lesson, Lookout. Here, we thought gentrification was caused by high-resourced, exclusionary areas being too protective of their neighborhoods. Not to mention that, from the looks of it, Pleasure Point’s “gentrification” actually happened about 50 years ago. But hey, violence is trendy, right?
WE’VE GOT BIG BALLS
Or had one, anyway, when the RedBall Project came to town—rolling through its tour of the Wharf, Del Mar, Cabrillo College, etc. Museum of Art and History Director Robb Woulfe was careful not to brand this particular installation “art” per se, but it was definitely very big and very globular. Sadly, the ball wasn’t sphere long before it made the rounds and bounced.
JULY
RACISM IS ALWAYS STUPID, BUT THIS KIND OF TAKES THE CAKE
In July, Brandon Bochat, 20, of Santa Cruz and Hagan Warner, 19, of Boulder Creek were arrested for vandalizing the Black Lives Matter mural in Santa Cruz. They took a video of themselves doing it and posted it on social media, which detectives used to identify and arrest them. Not sure if recording and posting publicly a video of yourself committing a crime says more about entitlement or intelligence, but who says you need to pick just one? The suspects were both booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail on charges of felony vandalism and conspiracy to commit a felony. They posted bail, and are set to face hate crime charges in January.
AUGUST
MOM, DAD, DID YOU HEAR—SCHOOL WAS CANCELLED DUE TO BEING LOCATED ON A BURIAL GROUND! HOW LONG? I THINK, LIKE, FOREVER
In-person classes resumed in August after more than a year of students being instructed virtually. With students set to flood hallways once again, health officials, teachers and parents struggled to prepare for a thousand new challenges facing this school year. What they definitely didn’t predict was challenge number 1,001: the discovery of human remains beneath those very hallways at Santa Cruz High. Remains likely belonging to an ancient Native American were discovered by workers performing power infrastructure upgrades in the weeks leading up to in-class instruction. Construction was paused as archeologists and tribal members investigated the remains. The samples are currently undergoing carbon dating to determine when the human lived. Luckily for all those eager high school students, school resumed on time.
CLIFF DIVING: UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED
You know that deeply unsettling feeling you get when you slide into your car, but immediately realize it’stoo clean, where’s the week-old empty coffee cup in the middle holder, this stereo is way too cool, oh god no. Shock and embarrassment set in as you realize this isn’t your car, and you scramble out, hoping no one saw. Still, it could be worse, like when a woman drove off of West Cliff in August after she was startled by a stranger opening the door of her sedan, which he mistakenly believed was his family’s car. Miraculously, the woman behind the wheel, who crashed through a metal fence and went over the side of the 30-foot cliff before landing on a ledge, only sustained a minor injury. The same can’t be said for her car, or the stranger’s nervous system after watching her speed off the edge.
SEPTEMBER
SEEKING: NEW TARGET FOR CRAZIES—ER, QUALIFIED APPLICANTS
It is truly a mystery why Santa Cruz County Health Services Director Mimi Hall announced in September that she was leaving her post. It seemed like she had it all: insanely long hours, anti-vaxxers who wouldn’t know a scientific fact if it bit them on the ass, crybaby anti-maskers who whine about having to wear a thin piece of cloth on their faces to save lives. Plus, they like to camp outside the homes of health officials like a bunch of creepazoids! Who would pass on this job? What’s that, the position is still open, even though Hall resigned months ago? Quelle surprise!
PLUS, A 20% DISCOUNT ON ORANGE CHICKEN
Speaking of jobs nobody wants, schools throughout the country began lamenting about a teacher shortage in September. Students at Pajaro Valley and Watsonville high schools had no teachers for some classes, and were left to wile away class time in a purgatory-like existence. Coming after a year of nearly impossible distance-learning conditions and increasingly belligerent parents, is it any wonder teachers are fleeing the profession in droves? One teacher summed it up nicely at a Pajaro Valley Unified School District board meeting when he noted that he could make more as an assistant manager at Panda Express.
OCTOBER
A HARD RAIN GONNA—OH, MY GOD, IT’S SO WET OUTSIDE
Words like “atmospheric river,” “bomb cyclone” and “evacuation orders” sound like meteorologist-speak for “OMG, drama!” But then, the wind sets in, followed by the rain, and pretty soon, you’re wondering where you’re going to move to when your house blows away and crashes into a puddle the size of San Jose. Then the sun returns, and you start texting your friends that, pfft, whatever, you knew everyone else was overreacting the whole time.
I FOUGHT THE LAW, AND THE LAW EKED OUT A SLOW YET NOTABLE BUREAUCRATIC VICTORY
OK, so imagine there’s a neighborhood of million-dollar-plus single-family homes, and a developer proposes a 140-unit apartment complex on a nearby corner—you know, for renters. Not only that, but half of the units would be set aside for low-income renters—all in a way that conforms with local zoning and state law. Pretty good idea, right? One annoying caveat is that, because of dumb financing rules, the lower-income units and the market-rate units would likely be housed in separate, adjacent buildings. Ugh, bad rule, but still seems like something the City Council would surely support—whoops, nope, sorry, they voted down the project 6-1 in October. But then, after the state of California shamed Santa Cruz for violating state housing law, and after housing advocates threatened to sue, the council eventually took another crack at it. On try number two, the council approved the project 4-3. If you’re keeping score at home, that means there are still three councilmembers who would prefer to knowingly violate state housing law—and also spend city money fighting it—than make Santa Cruz a little bit more affordable to non-millionaires who might otherwise get priced out of the county.
NOVEMBER
HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON GOES SMASHINGLY
The day after Thanksgiving in the 1950s, shoppers would descend on Philadelphia before the big Army-Navy football game. The “City of Brotherly Love” didn’t radiate with much love from Philly cops, who began referring to the day as “Black Friday” since they were unable to take the day off and had to work overtime. It was also a big day for shoplifters, who saw the chaos as an opportunity. By 1961, marketers and merchants had embraced the term “Black Friday.” It was the beginning of a tradition, perpetually teetering between annoyance and restless anxiety. Standing in long lines outside of Best Buy all night in the cold for a “doorbuster” you don’t need? Not anymore! In the months leading up to Black Friday 2021, some twisted minds decided to bypass the headache altogether. Introducing “flash mob robberies,” aka the new smash-and-grab. No lines, and no money necessary! The crimes have proliferated around the Bay Area, as well as Los Angeles. On the Central Coast, five shoppers took just 40 seconds to “grab” the items on their Christmas list from a Carmel jewelry store. Turns out most of the crimes are organized on social media, which unfortunately for these flash mobbers is something the police know exists.
WHEN TURKEYS ATTACK
UCSC ornithologist Bruce Lyon was driving down the outer loop of campus just like he did every day. That’s when things took a turn for the worst. “This turkey stopped my car and wouldn’t let me go,” Lyon said. “It was picking at the wheels and the bumper.” Lyon may have made the mistake of looking directly into the 20-pound bird’s night-black marble eyes. Luckily, he escaped unscathed, but as the non-native wild turkey population has grown exponentially over the last decade throughout Santa Cruz—specifically on the UCSC campus—this may not be the last we hear of turkey vs. person standoffs.
According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, wild turkeys are a highly valued upland game bird, and some locals can’t resist feeding them. That’s when trouble begins, as strays become a flock that has lost their natural fear of humans. If cornered, we suggest attempting to fool the turkeys into thinking you are one of them by singing the Secret Turkey Song of Belonging: “Gobble gobble! We accept you! We accept you! One of us!”
DECEMBER
WE’LL TAKE IT AS A COMPLIMENT
The American Tort Reform Foundation named California the worst “Judicial Hellhole” in the country, which sounds awful until you realize that ATRF is just another one of the jackass groups funded by dark money from wealthy CEOs who want to make it impossible for consumers and courts to hold their corporations accountable when they break the law or otherwise cause harm. Their efforts to turn back hard-won consumer protections would be easy to laugh off if it weren’t for gullible media outlets who fall for the sizzle potential of the phrase “Judicial Hellhole”—as the SoCal newspaper The Daily Breeze did in its Dec. 15 editorial “Our State Once Again Wins the Hellhole Prize.” Though the “Hellhole” report’s editors are no doubt far too cynical and soulless to even care at this point, everyone else need only listen to podcasts like In the Dark—which exposed the incredible injustices endured by Mississippi’s Curtis Flowers, and is largely responsible for his murder conviction being thrown out by the Supreme Court—and Undisclosed (which has covered shocking corruption in Maryland, Pennsylvania and elsewhere) to understand the real meaning of “judicial hellhole.”
WHY LOOK, THE MONEY TO HELP THE HOMELESS WAS IN THE BANANA STAND ALL ALONG!
In perhaps the most incredible coincidence of the entire year, the Santa Cruz City Council determined on Dec. 14 that it did in fact have 4.2 million previously un-know-about-able dollars to help with the homelessness disaster that the rest of us, both housed and unhoused, have been begging for help with since the pandemic began. And this just one day after our city was embarrassed on a global scale when international news outlets picked up pictures of the homeless encampment in the Benchlands submerged by floodwaters! It’s a Christmas miracle—one that definitely would not have been waaay more miraculous if it was taken care of back when President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act—from which the funds will come—in March. I mean, who ever heard of an Easter Miracle?
Valerie Corral dreams of opening a recreational cannabis dispensary to help offset the costs of her medicinal marijuana nonprofit, but high start-up costs have made her dream difficult to realize.
“It’s so damn expensive. It’s simply going to cost $200,000 more than we have,” says Corral. “It’s licensing and all the other costs, the permitting process … it’s a lot of money that we just don’t have.”
Corral has been in the medical cannabis industry since the early ’90s, providing free medical marijuana to low-income, chronically ill patients through her nonprofit Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM). As the co-founder of the medical cannabis collective, Corral faced threats of incarceration and DEA raids, but it was legalization that ultimately shuttered WAMM’s doors.
California voters approved the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2016, and in 2018 adult-use cannabis regulations kicked in. These regulations required every licensed cannabis provider to pay cultivation taxes and a 15% excise tax, regardless of whether or not they were nonprofit organizations.
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 34, restoring the ability of legal cannabis suppliers to provide free cannabis to the neediest patients in California without paying taxes, and Corral was able to relaunch WAMM.
The transition into legalization has been hellish, Corral says. And even as she hopes to open her own dispensary, the financial and logistical challenges continue to mount.
It’s her intimate knowledge of these challenges that Corral draws from when she offers advice to the city of Santa Cruz as it develops a cannabis equity program. Designed to help minorities, women and people formerly incarcerated for the possession of cannabis enter into the competitive legal cannabis market, equity programs have been popping up in major California cities. But as with most initiatives in today’s legalized cannabis industry, the effectiveness of these well-intentioned programs is varied.
“One of the ways in which the equity programs haven’t delivered the promise is that many, many equity programs have kind of been diluted,” says Bryce Berryessa, who opened Santa Cruz County’s first dispensary and owns both the Treehouse and The Hook dispensaries. “These programs need to offer financial support, business management support, support with navigating the regulations, compliance and application processes to really have an impact.”
The Status of the Industry
In June of 2020, Watsonville’s City Council approved the implementation of an equity program to support small business owners in the cannabis industry. Approved applicants have the advantage of omitting certain fees, delaying a property acquisition for business operations and the benefit of not having to compete against regular applicants in the highly-competitive field.
In order to apply for the program, a person must meet three of nine requirements, including: having attended a Pajaro Valley Unified School District school for at least five years, having been negatively impacted in a disproportionate way by cannabis criminalization or being “economically disadvantaged.”
Felipe Hernandez, who sat on the Watsonville City Council from 2012 to 2020 and had a stint as the city’s mayor, says the inspiration behind Watsonville’s cannabis equity program was a similar program in Oakland that provides grants and no-interest loans to equity applicants; 240 equity applicants have been fully permitted there. The scale of that program is much larger than Watsonville’s, which currently has two participants, but the goal of the programs are the same.
“We wanted something that would address some of the social inequities that the war on drugs had,” says Hernandez. “In addition to some of the low-level crimes with marijuana offenses that we’ve had in our communities.”
It’s no secret that people of color have been historically prosecuted at much higher rates for cannabis possession. Compared to whites, people of Latinx descent were 35% more likely to be arrested for cannabis crimes, and Black people were two times more likely to be arrested for cannabis misdemeanors, according to data from the California Department of Justice from 2006 to 2015.
Even though Santa Cruz County has a reputation as cannabis-friendly, the city of Santa Cruz conducted a study that found arrest rates for cannabis-related offenses from 2000-2018 were considerably above the state average. Worse, those arrests primarily impacted low-income neighborhoods.
“We owe it to these communities to help them into an industry that is now dominated by white cannabis owners,” says Hernandez.
But Berryessa says that equity programs are not the wide-sweeping solution to the industry’s inequality issues that policymakers believe. Tax rates as high as 40%, regulations that differ from city to city, confusing application processes and expensive start-up costs create both logistical and financial challenges for those interested in entering the legal market, says Berryessa. And all of this inflates the price of legal cannabis.
For these reasons, in addition to the state’s relaxing of penalties against illegal operations in the name of racial justice, the illicit market brings in approximately $8 billion annually, twice the volume of legal sales according to Global Go Analytics.
So even after people jump through the legal hoops to get their business up and running, they are undercut by the booming black market—a financial blow that can be devastating to minority-owned businesses who don’t have deep pockets to reach into.
“People wanted to come over to the legal market, but what they found is that the costs were too high,” says Berryessa. “Due to all of the requirements to get compliant, many people just realized that they couldn’t do it, or that it wasn’t worth it, and stayed in the traditional [black] market. I think there’s going to be a lot of legal businesses that are going to go out of business in the next few months.”
Hernandez also hopes these types of programs will help curb the black market, but he knows that’s a bigger problem.
“With black markets, the solution is a combination of a carrot and stick type of thing, with the right combination of enforcement and incentives,” says Hernandez.
Rebecca Unitt, the Economic Development Manager in charge of creating the city of Santa Cruz’s equity program, says that ultimately the state plays a bigger part in reducing the illicit market.
“The state is really driving a lot of the cannabis regulations and the changes that impact locality,” says Unitt. “We have certain controls, but it’s legislation that sets up how the licensing works and how businesses can be structured.”
In The Works
Watsonville’s equity program currently sponsors two applicants out of the five that applied in the past year, but the city is working to expand its program by applying for more money from the state. This past year, Watsonville waived $55,000 in permit fees for those applicants, according to Suzi Merriam, the city’s Community Development Department director.
But that’s really all Watsonville can afford to do without additional funding, says Merriam. She hopes the program will receive $2 million from the state, after the city submitted an application for a cannabis equity grant on Dec. 20. That money will help equity program recipients pay for local and state permitting and licensing fees, and Merriam hopes to use it to help with rent startup costs as well.
Mentorship, training in business and exposure to business connections is what Hernandez hopes to see Watsonville use the new money for. Especially for people of color and people who have been formerly incarcerated, accessing venture capital is more difficult, he says.
Combined with the fact that no major banks will loan money to dispensaries while cannabis is federally illegal, starting a cannabis business requires access to people who have deep pockets: something minorities often don’t have the same access to as white entrepreneurs, says Hernandez.
“A lot of people know the cannabis growing aspect,” says Hernandez. “But some of the business acumen, some of the social contacts with investors, those things are less available to minorities.”
Right now, Santa Cruz’s equity program is just a framework, Unitt says, but it will also include similar business management training. The program’s main emphasis will be financial assistance and a process for expungement.
“Our consultants did a lot of stakeholder interviews and spoke with people in the industry to get a sense of the barriers for existing cannabis license holders as well who would qualify for this program,” says Unitt. “Which is how we landed on these elements to prioritize.”
The program will be flexible in nature, says Unitt, and will be easily adaptable as time goes on and according to industry needs and changes. Her team plans to present the model for the program to the Santa Cruz City Council in February, with the goal of accepting applications in March.
Even though Berryessa is skeptical of most equity programs’ ability to actually help people be successful long term in the legal industry, he says that if any city can do it, it will be Santa Cruz.
“My hope is, as the city develops this program, they create a program that’s going to provide more than just a permit, but provide resources that will allow them to be successful and not have to sell out just to continue to operate,” says Berryessa. “These are the people who helped build the industry, they created the products that made California cannabis famous. We all lose if those guys disappear.”
For more than 116 years, the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History (SMNH) has aimed to connect residents and visitors alike to the natural world—from the deep waters of the Monterey Bay to the high ranges of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The museum was originally established in 1904 by naturalist Laura Hecox, daughter of original Santa Cruz lighthouse keepers Adna and Margaret Hecox. Fascinated by nature from a young age, Laura had gathered an extensive personal collection of seashells, minerals, fossils, Native American artifacts and more that was eventually willed to the City of Santa Cruz for the establishment of its first public museum.
“We are always doing whatever we can to honor Laura’s legacy,” says Kiersten Elzy-Loving, development and community partnership manager who has been a museum member since 1989. “Her spirit still lives on.”
Like many museums in Santa Cruz County, SMNH is a nonprofit, run entirely by a small staff of educators, scientists and naturalists to build curriculum, curate exhibits and plan events.
“The team here is remarkable,” says Elzy-Loving. “There is not a person who works here who isn’t deeply committed to the work and our mission.”
When the pandemic hit last year, SMNH was forced to close its doors, halt field trips and all other programs. But the team was quick to adapt—creating virtual opportunities to engage online visitors. They launched “Museum at Your Side” in 2020, taking different pieces of the museum and making it accessible to students and families.
The online presence not only reached students and teachers during their year of distance learning, but also people of all ages who had not connected with the museum before.
“We recognized that it created a new capacity,” Elzy-Loving says. “People who can’t come to events and programs, even when we’re open, because of distance, physical limitations, transportation … they can now engage with us.”
As it surfaces from the pandemic, SMNH has joined Santa Cruz Gives (SCG), a holiday fundraising campaign aiming to create a local network of donors and increase giving via crowdsourcing. This year the campaign doubled in size, highlighting a total of 80 local nonprofits. Donors can visit santacruzgives.org, where each organization has a profile page detailing their story and how they will use the money.
With the funds raised, the museum hopes to expand Museum at Your Side offerings in the new year. They also hope to strengthen their connections with other local organizations.
“Fiscally, [Santa Cruz Gives] is wonderful, but I think the better understanding of the landscape of other local nonprofits is also a tremendous opportunity,” Elzy-Loving says.
Another environmental-based organization participating in the campaign is Save Our Shores (SOS). The small nonprofit aims to conserve marine life and habitats in the Monterey Bay through policy changes, educational programs, beach cleanups and more. Like SMNH, the group has spent the last year playing catch-up.
“We’re trying to dig ourselves out of the financial impacts of the pandemic,” says SOS’ executive director Erica Donnelly-Greenan. “We are trying to rebuild our staff, volunteer base and programs. It’s a chicken and egg situation: We need the resources to build, but we also need to keep our programs and grants going, making sure our donors and supporters know that we’re still making an impact.”
Through SCG fundraising, SOS hopes to bring back and strengthen its learning programs to help educators meet changing science education standards. They once again are offering field trips to state parks, rivers and parks.
“Nature is the best classroom,” Donnelly-Greenan says. “It truly fosters that connection and helps them figure out the bigger picture. How we’re all tied together.”
Donnelly-Greenan, who only recently took over the position of executive director, says she has big plans to revamp how the organization connects with the community. This includes focusing on communities that need it the most, and addressing environmental injustice to assist those who have limited resources.
“We’re still going to do our beach cleanups, but we’re trying to get people to understand that clean beaches are the byproduct of the work we’re all doing together,” she says.
In South County, Watsonville Wetlands Watch (WWW) has restarted its in-person field trips and programs for local youth.
“We’re doing great,” says WWW executive director Jonathan Pilch. “It’s been a challenging year in a lot of ways, but also inspiring. We’re working on expanding our education programs to provide more outdoor learning for more students, and inspire more local youth to see themselves as the future leaders, scientists, and change-makers so needed for our community and planet.”
WWW does this through watershed restoration projects, job training, internships, and educational programs for 3rd-12th graders in the Pajaro Valley. With money raised through SCG, they aim to offer students more hands-on opportunities to reconnect with nature, as well as enhance public access to wetlands and host more tree plantings to reduce the impacts of climate change and improve air quality.
“It’s a really exciting time for our programs right now,” Pilch says.
Learn more and donate to these and other local environmental-based nonprofits at santacruzgives.org.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Historians disagree about the legacy of Jimmy Carter, who was President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. Was he effective or not? Opinions differ. But there’s no ambiguity about a project he pursued after his presidency. He led a global effort to eliminate a pernicious disease caused by the guinea worm parasite. When Carter began his work, 3.5 million people per year suffered from the parasite’s debilitating effects. Today, there are close to zero victims. Will 2022 bring an equivalent boon to your life, Aries? The banishment of an old bugaboo? A monumental healing? I suspect so.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 2022, I hope you will express more praise than ever before. I hope you’ll be a beacon of support and inspiration for the people you care for. The astrological omens suggest this could be a record-breaking year for the blessings you bestow. Don’t underestimate your power to heal and instigate beneficial transformations. Yes, of course, it’s a kind and generous strategy for you to carry out. But it will also lead to unforeseen rewards that will support and inspire and heal you.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If you search Google, you’ll be told that the longest biography ever written is the 24-volume set about British political leader Winston Churchill. But my research shows there’s an even more extensive biography: about Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, who lived from 1901 to 1989. His story consists of 61 volumes. In the spirit of these expansive tales, and in accordance with 2022’s astrological aspects, I encourage you to create an abundance of noteworthy events that will deserve inclusion in your biography. Make this the year that warrants the longest and most interesting chapter in that masterpiece.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): One of the 20th century’s most famous works of art was Fountain. It was scandalous when it appeared in 1917, since it consisted entirely of a white porcelain urinal. Marcel Duchamp, the artist who presented it, was a critic of the art market and loved mocking conventional thought. Years later, however, evidence emerged suggesting that Fountain may not have been Duchamp’s idea—that in fact he “borrowed” it from Cancerian artist and poet Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. There’s still disagreement among art scholars about what the facts are. But if definitive proof ever arrives that von Freytag-Loringhoven was the originator, it will be in 2022. This will be the year many Cancerians finally get the credit they deserve.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Author Carson McCullers wrote the novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Early in the story, the character named Mick Kelly has a crisis of yearning. McCullers describes it: “The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want—I want—I want—was all that she could think about—but just what this real want was she did not know.” If you have ever had experiences resembling Mick’s, Leo, 2022 will be your year to fix that glitch in your passion. You will receive substantial assistance from life whenever you work on the intention to clarify and define the specific longings that are most essential to you.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): After careful research, I have concluded that one of your important missions in 2022 will be to embody a perspective articulated by poet Rand Howells: “If I could have but one wish granted, it would be to live in a universe like this one at a time like the present with friends like the ones I have now and be myself.” In other words, Virgo, I’m encouraging you to do whatever’s necessary to love your life exactly as it is—without comparing it unfavorably to anyone else’s life or to some imaginary life you don’t actually have.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): If your quest for spiritual enlightenment doesn’t enhance your ability to witness and heal the suffering of others, then it’s fake enlightenment. If your quest for enlightenment encourages you to imagine that expressing personal freedom exempts you from caring for the well-being of your fellow humans, it’s fake. If your quest for enlightenment allows you to ignore racism, bigotry, plutocracy, misogyny, and LGBTQIA-phobia, it’s fake. Everything I just said about enlightenment is equally true about your quest for personal success. If it doesn’t involve serving others, it’s meaningless. In this spirit, Libra, and in accordance with the astrological omens, I invite you to make 2022 the year you take your compassion and empathy to the highest level ever.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Two mating rabbits could theoretically engender 11 million relatives within a year’s time. Although I suspect that in 2022 you will be as metaphorically fertile as those two hypothetical rabbits, I’m hoping you’ll aim more for quality than quantity. To get started, identify two projects you could pursue in the coming months that will elicit your most liberated creativity. Write a vow in which you state your intention to be intensely focused as you express your fecundity.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): A blogger named Soracities writes, “The more I read, the more I feel that a good mark of an intelligent book is simply that the author is having fun with it.” Sagittarian author George Saunders adds that at its best, “Literature is a form of fondness-for-life. It is love for life taking a verbal form.” I will expand these analyses to evaluate everything that humans make and do. In my opinion, the supreme sign of intelligence and value is whether the creators had fun and felt love in doing it. My proposal to you, Sagittarius, is to evaluate your experiences in that spirit. If you are doing things with meager amounts of fun and love, what can you do in 2022 to raise the fun and love quotient?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Microbiologist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. It was later described as “the single greatest victory ever achieved over disease”—an antidote to dangerous infections caused by bacteria. But there’s more to the story. Fleming’s strain of penicillin could only be produced in tiny amounts—not nearly enough to become a widespread medicine. It wasn’t until 1943 that a different strain of penicillin was found—one that could be mass-produced. The genius who made this possible was Mary Hunt, a humble researcher without a college degree. By 1944, the new drug was saving thousands of lives. I mention Hunt because she’s a good role model for you in 2022. I believe you’ll have chances to improve on the work of others, generating excellent results. You may also improve on work you’ve done in the past.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Catherine Pugh wrote a series of children’s books collectively known as Healthy Holly. Later, when she became mayor of the city of Baltimore, she carried out a scheme to sell 100,000 copies to hospitals and schools that did business with the city. Uh-oh. Corruption! She was forced to resign from her office and was arrested. I’d love for you to be aggressive and imaginative in promoting yourself in 2022, but only if you can find ethical ways to do so. I’d love for you to make money from doing what you do best, but always with high integrity and impeccability.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean Vaslav Nijinsky is regarded by many as the 20th century’s most brilliant dancer. He had a robust relationship with beauty, and I want you to know about it. Hopefully, this will inspire you to enjoy prolonged periods of Beauty Worship in 2022. To do so will be good for your health. Memorize this passage from Nijinsky: “Beauty is God. God is beauty with feeling. Beauty is in feeling. I love beauty because I feel it and therefore understand it. I flaunt my beauty. I feel love for beauty.”
Ryan Beauregard is at the forefront of winemakers in the Santa Cruz Mountains. His Bald Mountain Vineyard 2016 Brut Blanc De Blanc is a fine example of his expertise. Most of the wines he makes are available at Shopper’s Corner in Santa Cruz, so there’s still time to get some Beauregard bubbly before ringing in the New Year.
Using all Bald Mountain Chardonnay is Beauregard’s new sparkling wine project—the term “Blanc de Blanc” means, only white grapes were used.
“This release of the 2016 Blanc de Blanc ($70) was made utilizing traditional Méthode Champenoise winemaking techniques identical to the approach used in the Champagne region of France,” says Beauregard.
In other words, no stone is left unturned to make a sparkling wine fit for any kind of celebration. The taste is fresh, delicious, fragrant and harmonious.
Bald Mountain Vineyard is in Bonny Doon and farmed by Ryan’s father, Jim. They make a good team.
There are two places to taste Beauregard wine: Santa Cruz and Davenport. The Davenport wine bar is relatively new—they have lots of fun events, so check their website regularly. The Davenport venue is also available for private parties and corporate events.
Beauregard Vineyards, 10 Pine Flat Road, Santa Cruz. 831-425-7777. The Slow Coast Wine Bar, 450 Hwy. 1, Davenport. beauregardvineyards.com.
Cambio Roasters
Cambio Roasters founders Ann Hutson and Kevin Hartley have come up with eco-friendly coffee pods. I love coffee; I have a Keurig and a French press. But the Keurig is easier to use than falling off a log, so I tend to go with that. Cambio’s K-cup full-bodied coffee comes in different strengths, and the pods are recyclable—their unique, easy-peel lids help make the recycling process easier. Additionally, they’re biodegradable, organic, fair trade and roasted in California, so each pod is like a love letter to the planet. Visit cambioroasters.com for more information.
Following an October 2021 soft opening, Top Spot Sports Pub and Kitchen will have an official grand opening in January 2022. Top Spot Owner Ethan Merritt, formerly a small business consultant who spent 10 years as a bar manager in San Francisco, envisioned opening a pub with a “big city” feel.
Merritt’s new downtown Santa Cruz joint has it all: reclaimed wood floors, custom wood bar top, a whiskey bar, a beer deck outside, bar games on artificial turf, and, most importantly, high-quality grub described as “pub fare with soul food flare.” The menu superstar: Mama Laina’s buttermilk-marinated fried chicken.
Top Spot is open noon-midnight every day except Mondays. Recently, Merritt spoke about Top Spot and why he believes it will fill a niche in downtown Santa Cruz.
Why did you choose this space?
ETHAN MERRITT: We started with a great foundation, a completely built-out kitchen with a wood-burning Italian pizza oven and an amazing patio bar. Nine months ago, when I began prospecting my pub concept, I created the look of the interior on a PowerPoint. It’s extremely satisfying to now see my concept become reality and share it with our community. We like to use the word “pub” because we feel it belongs just as much to our customers as it does to us. I’m also a single father, and it has always been my dream to raise my daughter here in Santa Cruz because we love the beach, outdoor activities and also just the positive vibes.
What does Top Spot bring to Santa Cruz?
We believe that with our Southern fried chicken, we have a unique food offering for the community. And with recent local pub closures, we felt there was a void for a classic and comfortable place to enjoy sports, food, drinks and bar games like darts, cornhole, ring toss and beer pong. We’ve also partnered with local breweries, as well as the Santa Cruz Warriors. We provide catering for the team after games; the players really go nuts for our fried chicken and collard greens.
711 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. 831-471-8089, topspotpub.com.
Since 2015, Santa Cruz Gives, the digital holiday fundraising program for local nonprofits, has provided financial support to an array of agencies that do good work for others. Whether providing meals, financial assistance or access to job opportunities, the 501c3 organizations selected by Santa Cruz Gives to participate in the end-of-year donation haul find themselves basking in the glow of appreciation for their efforts.
As outlined in last week’s edition, Valley Churches United in Ben Lomond is one of the recipients of the goodwill—and good funds—generated by the Santa Cruz Gives program. This week’s good news is brought to you by the letters F, O, T, S, C, P and L: Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries.
Incorporated in 1979, the nonprofit has dedicated itself to supporting local public libraries in Santa Cruz County, including the architecturally stunning libraries in Felton and Scotts Valley, and the newly renovated Boulder Creek Branch.
With 10 branches in its collection and a pandemic in full swing, the Friends’ board of directors finds themselves trying to navigate a new normal while continuing to provide access to quality materials on the shelves.
According to Board President Janis O’Driscoll, their partnership with Santa Cruz Gives has provided a financial boost for the group in a time of uncertainty.
“We are beyond excited that at the moment the Friends stand at 99% of their 2021 fundraising goal. Should we fall short, we will review the percentage of the goal we designated for each branch and distribute the funds we have accordingly. Our community has been so responsive this year that my hopes are high that we will reach our goal,” said O’Driscoll.
The onset of Covid-19 created a new normal for the Friends group, including a large move towards virtual services. All virtual services have remained available so people can search the catalog, use the databases, and even reserve materials for non-contact pick-up, said O’Driscoll.
In addition, branches that have remained open have maintained Wi-Fi connections so they can be available to those who need it, and many programs quickly moved from in-person to virtual.
For example, said O’Driscoll, children continued to read to animals over Zoom in the popular reading enrichment Tales to Tails program. And book clubs and community conversations continued online.
“Our Library staff has been amazing during the pandemic and their energy remains constant,” said O’Driscoll.
In 2016, Measure S was passed to support construction or upgrades to all 10 of the county’s branches.
“Though $67 million was raised through this measure, construction costs have risen in part due to the pandemic shortages of supplies and labor. The Friends are dedicated to raising money to fill the gap between construction costs and Measure S funds,” said O’Driscoll.
With only three full-time employees and 175 volunteers, the Friends group works hard to create usable spaces in libraries, including exhibits and collaborative study areas comfortably furnished to keep visitors engaged.
So how did the Friends group become aligned with Santa Cruz Gives for 2021?
“It was suggested to us by Cynthia Mathews, who is one of our very active supporters and volunteers,” Friends’ Executive Director Bruce Cotter said. “She told us it would be a great program and we shouldn’t miss the opportunity to participate—and she was absolutely right. Jeanne Howard and all the folks at Santa Cruz Gives have been very helpful and great fun to work with.”
While the Santa Cruz Gives fundraising event is conducted in a small window at the end of the year, the Friends group has been engaged in a year-long campaign.
“[Our goal is] to raise funds for the Garfield Park, Branciforte, and Aptos renovation projects,” said Cotter. “We had set a very aggressive goal of raising $1 million dollars to support those branches, and we were looking to raise $20,000-25,000 from Santa Cruz Gives to help us to achieve those goals. At this point, it is clear we are going to raise at least $1 million from various sources, and we are grateful for the support that has come in from Santa Cruz Gives.”
As of Dec. 22, Friends was the beneficiary of nearly $38,000 from the Santa Cruz Gives efforts, allowing the group to move forward in 2022.
“The Friends have not stopped raising awareness and funds for the revitalization of the 10-branch system. Friends’ chapters have continued the Capitola Mall bookstore, book sales in the community, and the popular Our Community Read program,” said O’Driscoll.
Want to help your local library realize its next chapter? Visit santacruzgives.org to donate.
In a year of dining dangerously, we all took culinary pleasure where we could find it. Often it was in carryout dinners—Avanti Santa Cruz’s lamb meatballs with polenta, Laili’s marinated beets, coriander, arugula and goat cheese salad. Oh, and the lamb kabob with perfumed saffron rice and those fiery and complex chutneys.
But as restaurants tip-toed into outdoor parklet dining, we enjoyed incredible meals in the romantic back patio of La Posta. The house sourdough holds a place in our heart. At one special dinner, we feasted on an appetizer of large shreds of smoked trout, joined by fingerling potatoes and diagonal slices of fresh snap peas in a vinaigrette infused with fermented Fresno chilis, lemon, and garlic. Equally impressive was a sensuous cannelloni entree filled with succulent braised pork, kale and black currants, dusted with parmesan inside and out.
Sometimes it was one spectacular dish that stood out: a fried calamari appetizer at Oswald, feather-light, crisp and tender. A slice of tumescent pumpkin pie, spices perfectly balanced, from Kelly’s, served at 11th Hour Coffee. At Gabriella Cafe an entree of local coho salmon glazed with Gema Cruz’s chimichurri sauce knocked me out, as did an appetizer of watermelon gazpacho. From the energetic hand of chef Todd Parker at Sante Adairius came a mile-high chicken salad sandwich that was like nothing I’ve ever eaten, sandwich-wise. Lots of labor-intensive dicing went into the central core of chicken, celery, carrots, a ripe juicy tomato, and preserved lemon (the key to these cascades of flavors). Inside the micro-chopped chicken salad was the tart, citrusy surprise of sorrel leaves.
The Ibiza Hippie Salad from Barceloneta won us over, again! Kale, preserved lemons, yams, little pastas. Easily the most delightful suite of ingredients in town. At Venus Spirits Cocktails and Kitchen the crisp, crisp brussels sprouts with pink onions, cashew cream and black garlic sauce was perfection, paired with the Venus No.2 G&T laced with star anise and a bay leaf. At Copal, we accompanied our margaritas with hand-made corn tortilla quesadillas, warm with melting cheese and mushrooms—the star of the meal! When Brad Briske of Soquel’s HOME took over the kitchen at Discretion Brewing for a while, he created something outrageous—fresh cod tacos layered with sriracha aioli, avocado whip, cabbage slaw and pickled onions.
Brunch at Gabriella was good enough to get us out of the house on a Sunday morning. And it was our very first meal in a restaurant during this weird year. Eggs Florentine (perfect avocados) and breakfast tacos made celestial by the addictive house salsa plus French press coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice. So satisfying.
Mentone in Aptos Village specializes in delicious sophistication. One particular stand-out meal included a gorgeous platter of earthy, salty Wagyu bresaola, a definitive pizza bianca with three cheeses, and transformative Negronis, classic as well as the Spagliato Bianco. The housemade fior di latte gelato, infused with sea salt and olive oil, is the dessert we want for our final meal on earth.
Dinner at Trestles in Capitola Village was at this year’s very top, thanks to the uncanny touch of chef Nick Sherman, who reinvents seafoods and elevates vegetables through fusion sauces and playful combinations of ingredients. Pork belly with roast watermelon and jalapeño vinaigrette shared the spotlight with roast trumpet mushrooms in balsamic glaze. We were also amazed by a dish of caramelized scallops cushioned by kohlrabi and a port reduction.Our favorite lunch at Iveta always delivers: turkey and havarti sandwich, with sea salt chips, a lime wine spritzer and that incredible Cowboy Cookie. Here’s to health, happiness and a re-opening of our world in 2022!
