Tag archives: Carpinteria

Over 500 people showed up #CarpStrong at the first public Architectural Review Board (ARB) meeting on the resort proposal for the Carp Bluffs, held at the Carpinteria City Council Chambers on January 25. The chambers overflowed to the hallways, lobby, and outdoor tent with a live feed. Others watched it remotely. The attendees stayed the […]

Palmer Jackson Jr.’s band, the Doublewide Kings, is doing a benefit show to raise funding for the Alcazar Theatre’s 2024 renovations on February 2 and February 3. The band has a huge following and announced that early sponsorship VIPs include Montecito’s Scott Brittingham of Brittingham Family Foundation, Bill and Katie Garland,Board Treasurer of Casa del […]

City of Carpinteria Architectural Review Board Hearing for the Bluffs Resort Project, titled “The Carpinteria Farm, Hospitality and Residential Project,” is scheduled for Thursday, January 25 at 5:30 pm at Carpinteria City Hall.  This meeting will be attended by the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs, which is seeking an all-out community support effort to stop […]

Mike Lazaro is appointed the Board President of the Alcazar Theatre Carpinteria as of Oct. 28. We talked via phone Nov. 5, and he shared: “Right now, these are exciting days for the Alcazar Theatre. We are blessed with so many opportunities to show the diversity of what the theater can provide, from live performances, […]

The preparations for the 37th Annual Avocado Festival in Carpinteria were going as planned, when unexpected news came to the board that their dear colleague, avocado grower, and longtime festival foundation supporter Mac Brown had passed away on October 5. Avo Fest Co-President and the Director of Productions & Operations Mike Lazaro shared with me: […]

After a bit of a mid-summer lull, the Santa Barbara Bowl is back in action, and exudes eclecticism in its quartet of concerts this week. The August 4 show is a conglomeration of its own as co-headliners Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue and Ziggy Marley are supported by Mavis Staples and the Robert Randolph Band […]

The Alcazar Theatre in Carpinteria is a center for performing arts and entertainment. It was founded 95 years ago, and on June 9 it held a celebration to commemorate the anniversary. Community members came to share in the birthday cake and performances by Cecilia James and BFD (Bob Montanes, John Finseth, and David Hekhouse). Emcees […]

Compassionate Care of Carpinteria had a record turnout of more than 150 guests when it hosted its fifth annual The Light Shines Ahead lunch at the Rincon Beach Club, raising around $40,000. The boffo bash – chaired by Marybeth Carty – featured guitarist Hector Hurtado’s music before speeches from David Selberg, Hospice of Santa Barbara […]

Montecito Journal correspondent Leslie Westbrook produced Voces de Old Town Carpinteria, the short documentary focusing on five Carpinterians who attended one of California’s last segregated schools – Aliso Elementary, which was “Mexicans Only” until it desegregated 75 years ago back in 1947. The film premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February, and […]

In last week’s edition, we told you about Bettina’s plans to open a new location in Carpinteria. This week, word on the street is that Chef Mollie Ahlstrand, formerly of Trattoria Mollie on Coast Village Road and then on State Street, is opening an Italian market/deli on Casitas Pass Road, in the same shopping center […]

Late last week, Bettina owners Rachel Greenspan and Brendan Smith announced on social media that they have signed a lease for a new location in Carpinteria, as part of a multi-tenant development project coming to Linden Avenue.  The new location will be more casual than the Montecito Country Mart location, and will be more of […]

I was on an early morning beach run in Carpinteria, pink and orange hues melding across the eastern horizon. While weaving my way in soft sand past wintering killdeer and western snowy plovers, those hardy shorebirds thoroughly enjoyed the wrack lines of tattered giant bladder kelp left behind by the previous high tide. Later that […]

When COVID crushed live entertainment in March 2020 for more than a year, Gilberto González turned to working in the studio environment. González, a guitarist who was raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, but has spent just shy of a quarter-century in Ventura County, began recording regularly at Emmet Sargent’s Beagle Studios, making video recordings with a […]

Jeanette Fantone, a Japanese Filipino animator from Carpinteria, has won a 2022 Princess Grace Award. Her work largely stems from cultural nostalgia and gravitas towards the manipulation of textures and tactility as a way of invoking impressions of memory. Fantone received her BFA in Experimental Animation from CalArts this year and competed three films in […]

Girls Inc. of Carpinteria is bringing back their wintery gift-giving event, Operation Holiday Cheer. Launched in 2020 and presented by Cox Communications, this program brings gifts and some holiday spirit to local girls and their families that are experiencing economic hardships resulting from the pandemic.  “We are proud to host our 3rd Annual Operation Holiday […]

Jumping from high school to college, and from a harrowing drama to an absurdist comedy, there’s also UCSB Theater’s offering of a long weekend of The Government Inspector at the Hatlen Theater on campus November 16-20. UCSB faculty member Michael Bernard, whose tenure in town following 10 years as Associate Artistic Director of the 52nd […]

Unless you’re a dog, most of us never think about fire hydrants until you need one. Such was the case when Robin Donaldson, an architect for a residential renovation project on Padaro Lane in Carpinteria, applied for a routine building permit with the county. His plans had already been approved by the California Coastal Commission […]

Down on the Carpinteria State Beach, between the mouth of the Carpinteria Creek and southeast of the Tarpits, a nesting colony of western snowy plovers continues to grow on the popular summertime beach. Nesting season is March 15 to September 15, and in 2021, the first successful western snowy plover nest since 1960 saw three […]

The Pumpkin Queen is in need of your assistance again. It seems that scoundrel Louie D’Ville is now scheming with the despicable Chuck Bunger to turn all of Isla Vista into parking lots, strip malls, and high rises.  Yes, with October coming to a close, IV Recreation & Park District and Lucidity Festival’s Halloween Haunted […]

Sunday, August 21 marked the reception for the second public art exhibit for Tamara Thompson, with over 40 natural seaweed designs on watercolor paper, framed and matted, for wall and tabletop.  Thompson, self-named “The Seaweed Artist,” is in a group show with her father, Michael Harvan, a local landscape painter, at the Apiary in Carpinteria […]