San Juan Capistrano

Remains in Hillcrest Park Identified as Belonging to Native American

The Orange County Coroner has completed an investigation involving human bones discovered in Fullerton's Hillcrest Park last December and determined they are of Native American origin. Dave Singleton, program analyst with the California Native American Heritage Commission, said the portion of a skul ... More >>

This Week In Food: Taverna Blu, Pot Tamales, and Bootlegger's on the Move

Hello ladies and gents, let's take a look at this week in food... Edwin reviewed Taverna Blu, the new Greek restaurant in the Irvine Spectrum, and it seemed to prove that dining at the Spectrum has turned over a new leaf. Yum! Then he moved on to funny things and shared a story about Guy Fieri, and ... More >>

Where to Buy Tamales in Orange County This Christmas, 2012 Edition!

This is hilarious. Every year around this time, I get asked where to buy the best tamales in Orange County. Really, the answers rarely change. Below is the article on the subject I did last year, which itself is mostly a retread of a story I did back in 2007. Other plugs I'll give right now are for ... More >>

[UPDATED with Edison Objection to Weekly Report:] Design Flaws Confirmed at San Onofre Nuclear Plant

See update at end of post where Southern California Edison takes issue with the Weekly's original report earlier this morning.ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 19, 8:58 A.M.: Design flaws resulted in San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) generators being unable to handle too high a flow of radioactive wat ... More >>

Free Ticket Tuesday: Young Dubliners at the Coach House

​Get your fill of St. Patrick's Day shenanigans with Celtic rockers the Young Dubliners, who, as our calendar editor Erin DeWitt says, are always down to bring their raucous, whiskey-soaked live show onstage. Better yet, we'll just quote from DeWitt's 2011 calendar pick: "The continual tourists, f ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Earl G. Glenn, Santa Ana Postman/Record-Breaking Cyclist

​Time was when cycling was viewed as a heroic effort and not the efforts of Irvinites trying to burn off a few pounds on weekends, and Earl G. Glenn was the master of them all in OC. In 1897, he set a speed record that stood until at least the early 1920s: 12 1/2 miles in 30:31 on a dirt course--t ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Frederick Bastady, Buena Park Citrus Rancher/School Board Member

​Out in the Central Valley town of Lindsay, Bastady Ranches continues the family's century-long tradition of growing oranges. They've been there since 1955, since Emanuel Bastady moved the family business from Buena Park, a business he inherited from his uncle Frederick, a child of Swiss immigrant ... More >>

Derek Reeve, SJC Councilman, Loses Teaching Gig as Newspaper and Website Scrum Over Plagiarism

​The Orange County Register and AOL's Patch have served as home and away courts for a series of journalistic volleys involving Patch's San Juan Capistrano news site and that city's controversial lawyer, educator and city councilman, Derek Reeve.The latest kill-shot involves Reeve losing a teaching ... More >>

241 Extension Builders Figure If You Can't Beat 'Em, Piecemeal 'Em

​Developers of the despised Foothill (241) Toll Road expansion into San Clemente figure if you can't beat 'em, piecemeal 'em.That's the takeaway from a Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency committee approving $206 million be spent for the first four miles of a planned 16-mile extension ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Francis Allen Kidder, Santa Ana Father and Son

​The mascot for this legendary column, at right, isn't taken from the archives of the Orange County Ku Klux Klan but rather dates to the 1930s, to San Diego's vibrant Klucker scene. His most famous cameo is in the intro to the HBO series, True Blood, used as visible proof of the Klan's depravity ( ... More >>

Cinépolis of Mexico Brings the Luxury and Low-End Jobs to Hoity-Toity OC ZIP Codes for a Change

See, the Spanish juxtaposed with Captain America ... oh, never mind.​Mexicans have taken over your menial jobs, your shitty apartments and your marijuana-delivery options, America.Prepare to have our amigos south of the border take over your movie theaters next.Like an endless wave of, oh, whateve ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Rollin Marsden and Roy Davis, Fullerton Councilmembers

​My apologies to my loyal white-supremacist audience for not doing one of these last week--I'm busy putting the final touches on...something, so had to skip a week. But fear not, skins: this week's a two-fer, and we return to Fullerton in honor of the civic malfeasance that plagues the city, espec ... More >>

A Few Top Chef Masters to Gather in Laguna Beach's Montage Resort for Charity Dinner

Share Our Strength​Psst, got a spare $150 to blow? On May 22nd, 2011, Montage Laguna Beach will host Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation®, the charity that hopes to eliminate childhood hunger in our country. And for the price, you will get to eat cuisine prepared by some heavy hitters, two o ... More >>

Belinda Exon, Surf City Escrow Chief, Gets 3 Years for Stealing $4 Mil in Poor-Housing Funds

​Why is your kid still huffing lead and other nasty toxins in your low-income housing unit despite the federal government having already sent your Orange County city funds to remedy the hazard?Blame Belinda Exon. The president of Rehab Financial Services, Inc., a now-defunct Huntington Beach comp ... More >>

[UPDATED:] Storm Status: Road and Shelter Closures

​Update, December 22, 10:08 p.m.: The emergency shelter at Mission Viejo High School has closed, the county announced this evening.Evacuated residents in need of shelter can still go to Laguna Beach High School and El Modena High School in Orange. (Addresses are on the next page.)The county's most ... More >>

Holiday Toy Express Route Change Scrooges San Juan Capistrano

OCTA.net​Metrolink's Holiday Toy Express chugs into Orange County this month, but after making more than 50 stops over 14 days last year, the Christmasy choo-choo is only stopping 13 times over five days this December.That has one South County town feeling particularly Scrooged.

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

Is ESPN's Chris Berman a Moron, or Just of the Old School?

​I had ESPN on TV yesterday during the Home-Run Derby festivities before today's All-Star Game while writing...something...and overheard its top blowhard, Chris Berman, describe some home run's lengthy by claiming it was heading toward San Juan Capistrano .Hmm...given that the Angels Stadium's dia ... More >>

South Wing Interpretative Exhibit

Mission San Juan Capistrano

Quote of the Day: San Juan Capistrano Is Not A Hellhole

bredgur / Flickr / Creative CommonsVictorville. Not pictured: meth.​"I mean, I don't want to compare us to Victorville. Please... please... PLEEEEASE."-- San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Tom Hribar from behind the dais at last night's city council meeting, apologizing after wondering aloud whet ... More >>

Did Anyone Get a Waiver From That Aborted Fetus in the Photo?

​As then-state Senator Bill Morrow (R-San Juan Capistrano) met with about 40 teen attendees of Operation Rescue's summer Survivors Camp in August 1999, a girl walked up to hand the past Pro-Life PAC of Orange County "Legislator of the Year" a jar with a fetus floating ... More >>

OC Register Says Advertisers, Clients Screwed Them Out of $350,000

Lawyers for the Orange County Register have filed nine lawsuits in the last nine months--including two in recent days--seeking more than $350,000 in outstanding debt from advertisers, commercial printing clients and at least one distributor of OC's largest daily newspaper.According to Superior Court ... More >>

[Special Screenings] 'Casablanca,' 'Bedtime Stories,' 'Memento,' More

[Special Screenings] Local Showings of 'Aliens,' 'Casablanca,' 'Happy Go Lucky,' More

Anthony Rivera's Juaneño Indian Tribal Council Says Chief David Belardes Is No Juaneño

Rain, Sage, Chants, Prayers, Apologies All Wrapped Up in a Rainbow

After turning a corner leading to the Mission San Juan Capistrano courtyard, participants leaving this morning's wet prayer ceremony in honor of Native Americans who perished in an 1812 earthquake that toppled the Old Stone Church were treated to a bright, magnificent rainbow hanging over the wester ... More >>

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

This Week In The OC Weekly

County Life

People, places, politicos, lawmen, muckrakers, card sharps, & other assorted scalawags & neer-do-wells, plus tall tales & ghost stories.

Grub Guide

Tasty morsels from the county's best damn dining guide

Grub Guide

Tasty morsels from the county's best damn dining guide

Grub Guide

Tasty morsels from the county's best damn dining guide

Grub Guide

Tasty morsels from the county's best damn dining guide

Grub Guide

Tasty morsels from the county's best damn dining guide

Grub Guide

Tasty morsels from the county's best damn dining guide

Summer Grub Guide

Your guide to the best damn eats in OC

Grub Guide

A taste of Orange County's best damn dining guide

'Carpetbaggers, Thieves and Land-grabbers'

Toll road officials raise the dead in their war with local Native Americans

Of Swallows, Schwarzenegger, and Swift Boats

The faithful of Orange County have traditionally been willing to pretend to believe in miracles, even when they know better. Consider the swallows of San Juan Capistrano. Anyone in San Juan Cap with eyes to see, or a freshly washed car to be shat on, knows the birds return March-ishly each year, and ... More >>

Grub Guide

This week in the county, S-Z

Art

Avanti Cafe

The Secret Lives of Couples

Dinner With Friends probes beneath marriages surface

2002: Diary of a Mad Year

This is Where We Pray

As earthmovers move in, local Indians move to save their sacred land

Part 14: Index-O-Rama!

Oh

Linda McCartneys photos, bold African Ceremonies

Its the End of the Year the Decade the Millennium Issue

Celebrate Post-Feminism Week!

Seven days worth of angry, horny women

More Dance Clubs!

The boss bellows, Commie Girl delivers