Results tagged “oakland”

As we noted last week in the New School Cocktail Glossary, the bar program over at Camino in Oakland, just like the food, is focused entirely on local, seasonal, sustainable, organic ingredients and spirits -- so that means if there's a point in time when there are no local limes available, all the drinks will be made without limes, and all the drinks are made with local liquors. Camino was opened last year by Chez Panisse alum Russell Moore, and the bar manager Alex Phillips sent us this recipe for a Mezcal concoction that fits perfectly with the fall season. From Alex:

Now this? Is our kind of criminal. With no way to get to his auto-theft trial in Vallejo, tenacious Oakland resident Samuel George Botchvaroff did what comes naturally to him: he stole a car and drove it to the courthouse.

Oh oh. Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums owes the IRS in back taxes. Lots and lots of back taxes.

After yesterday's (surprise) decision by a Napa Valley DA not to press charges against Raiders coach Tom Cable, the coach told the media, "I'm obviously very thankful that the authorities did the thoroughness that they did in terms of getting the facts and all that ... I never let it become a distraction because as I mentioned many times, I just had a lot of faith. I knew what happened." His assistant coach, Randy Hansen, if you recall, claimed that Cable choked and threatened to kill him. Hansen's claims were "not corroborated by the three assistant coaches in the room at the time" of the alleged attack.

In the span of 75 minutes, three people were killed in Oakland on Thursday morning, allegedly in the heat of domestic violence blowups.

While San Franciscans lose their righteous marbles over whether or not to extend parking meter hours, Oakland has pushed back parking enforcement from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. Why? Because it's bad for local businesses. See, very much like San Francisco, not everyone rides bikes or takes public transportation. Yes, while it's not very save-the-planet-y, many families, ilk with disposable income, and people who bleed when you cut them drive motorized vehicles. And those people like to go out to buy stuff, eat at restaurants, and attend various entertainment venues after work.

Which would be the more difficult/least appealing task, handling a live or a dead chicken until the owner arrived? Flyer found in Shafter, Oakland. We wonder if it belongs to Novella Carpenter.

Attorney General/future gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown was in San Francisco today. He was at some sort of lunch for whiny Geary Boulevard merchants. When comparing Oakland to San Francisco, he made the following funny:

A little after 5 a.m. this morning, a man aboard a container ship making its way into the Oakland Outer Harbor fell overboard. Found by the ship's crew and taken to to Pier 35 in San Francisco, the unidentified man was pronounced dead at the scene. He was also found "with no personal flotation device" after plunging some 900 feet from up high. The ship, according to SFGate, is owned by Aries Line Shipping and managed by Evergreen Marine UK Ltd.

Early this morning, a shooting reported just after midnight at 2515 Foothill Boulevard in Oakland. According to CBS 5/BCN, "Officers arrived to find the teen suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital where he was declared brain dead." No arrests have been made. Information on the shooting should be directed to the Oakland Police Department's homicide division at 510-238-3821.

One of our discoveries at this past weekend's Eat Real Fest was a new art/collage magazine called Food+Sex. Publisher Mark Andrew Gravel was on hand selling copies on Saturday at Jack London Square, and we couldn't help but be curious -- food and sex being two of our (and everyone's) favorite things. The editors describe the mag thusly: "Collage art food magazine, Food + Sex, is a combined effort of artists, writers, farmers and foodmakers exploring how desire shapes the food environment... Included in its pages are a visual patchwork of uncommon art, essays and excerpts by thinkers, makers and doers from the food underground and beyond."

                             

It was a festival-heavy weekend for us, what with Outside Lands bridging the generations through music, food, wine and Tom Jones, and the first annual Eat Real Festival in Oakland, a celebration of street food, local beer and sustainable eating. Unlike the SF Street Food Fest the previous weekend -- which was delicious but way more mobbed than anyone was prepared for, and by some accounts, not very "street" -- Eat Real was crowded but civilized, and spread out on a few blocks of the newly rebuilt Jack London Square along the Oakland Estuary. Over a dozen vendors who operate out of taco trucks pulled the trucks into the plaza and along the promenade, and they were joined by a few dozen more vendors with carts and tents. The theme of the affair was "putting the food back in fast food," and pretty much all the offerings were of the cheap and hand-held variety, all between $2 and $5 -- except the beer, served out of a shed rigged with 40 rotating taps, which came out to about $6 a glass if you bought a four-glass tasting. Food highlights included some awesome corn empanadas with chimichurri sauce from El Porteno, the chocolate cupcake with caramel icing from Sweetface Bakery, the B.L.A.T. from newcomer Jon's Street Eats, some simple fried smelts with aioli from Whole Foods' Tapas To Go truck, and a downright perfect mini-burger from 4505 Meats. Also present were mobile mainstays like the twitter.com/thepietruck, Seoul on Wheels (who are making a comeback) and the Amuse Bouche folks. (See a full food slideshow at SF Grub Street.)

And now for some even more depressing news. SFAppeal has word that Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell, the foster parents of 5-year-old Hasanni Campbell who went missing earlier this month, have been arrested for murder. "Jennifer Campbell, Hasanni's aunt, is in custody in Oakland, while Ross has been arrested and is en route to the city," according to Officer Jeff Thomason.

Oakland's Eat Real Festival, which was founded last year, is a sister event to the San Francisco Street Food Festival and sounds like a much better run event than the SF-based debacle trial run was. Get Real also benefits La Cocina, and there's no entry fee.

The Oakland Police Department revealed yesterday that "Officer Murray Hoyle committed suicide in an unincorporated area of Brentwood on Saturday." Hoyle, it seems, was with the OPD for more than 28 years. According to CBS 5/BCN, Hoyle "transferred to the traffic division, where he enjoyed enforcing traffic laws and riding a police motorcycle. He later transferred back to patrol and was well-known for working in the Montclair District." He is survived by his wife and three children, ages 22, 15, and 11. No word as to why, exactly, he took his own life. Sad. In related troubled East Bay police officer news, did anyone happen to catch last night's Intervention? It was about "Gloria," an alcoholic Concord police officer resident. Fortunately, she kicked the booze and no longer slaps her daughter or spends her rent money on booze. Congratulations, Gloria!

The father of five-year-old Hassani Campbell, the boy who went missing from a parking lot in Oakland’s Rockridge district last week, failed a FBI lie detector test. KTVU has word that "[l]aw enforcement sources have confirmed...that [Louis] Ross failed a polygraph test given by the FBI last week," even though he told KTVU, during an interview, that he answered all questions honestly. KTVU goes on to say that police have searched Campbell's Fremont home, looking for "biological evidence belonging to Hasanni, and a sword or cutting instrument." Evidence also suggests that it's "unlikely Hasanni wandered off." Anyway, people with information on the case are urged to call the Oakland Police Department or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572 or 510-777-3211.

Behold Oakland's Rotunda Building. Designed by Charles Dickey in 1921, the structure is "considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the City of Oakland." It stands 120 foot high, boating a "5,000 square foot elliptical dome." Gorgeous, yes? Yes.

An unwelcome gift for the new Oakland police chief Anthony Batts? Last night's shooting on the 17500 block of 85th Street, which saw four people get shot a little after 9 p.m. According to reports, "the victims were taken to a hospital to be treated...and their injuries were not expected to be life threatening." No arrests have been made.

FBI agents armed with search dogs have joined the effort to help find Hasanni Campbell, the five-year-old boy who went missing in Rockridge on Monday afternoon. According to the Oakland Tribune, "Louis Ross, the child's foster father, said he left the boy...outside his newer-model BMW in the back parking lot of Shuz, a shoe store in the 6000 block of College Avenue, about 4:15 p.m." on Monday. When the foster father returned from the store, the boy, who has cerebral palsy and uses leg braces, was gone. He either took off on foot (which is unlikely) or was taken from the parking lot.

Five-year-old Hassani Campbell went missing on Monday. The boy, who has cerebral palsy, was last seen in the Rockridge neighborhood, "reported missing from the area of 6000 College Avenue at around 4:15 p.m., according to the Oakland police." According to CBS 5 / BCN, "Hassani is described as a black boy with light complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. He is around 3 feet tall and weighs around 30 pounds. He was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt and gray pants." He also wears leg braces. The father was, rightfully, hysterical when he couldn't find his son. Any information about Hassani's whereabouts should call directed to Oakland police youth services: 510-238-3641.

After coming across "possible chemicals and other suspicious items at an apparent suicide scene" at a Jack London Square Hotel, authorities evacuated several rooms at the hotel and shut down Broadway Avenue and Washington Street between Second and Third streets a little before 7:30 a.m. this morning. According to , "a man's body was found this morning in a hotel room in the 200 block of Broadway with a mask to his face connected to a gas tank." We'll update as soon as we know more.

Early Saturday morning, a 16-year-old girl was shot on the 3400 block of International Boulevard in Oakland. According to reports, after OPD officers saw a car driving "erratically" a little before 1:30 a.m., "officers stopped the vehicle, which had four people inside. They saw that the 16-year-old girl, who was a passenger in the vehicle, had been shot." The unidentified victim is at an Oakland hospital being treated for life-threatening injuries. In San Francisco, just before 3 a.m., a man was shot in the Bayview district in the unit block of Espanola Street. He is being treated for non-life threatening wounds. No arrests in either case were made.

Cavenia Bryant and Jamillya Edgerton, the two waste-of-space human beings who videotaped themselves brutally attacking an Oakland hair salon owner, then bragged about it on-air to radio station KMEL -- were in court today. It seems the victim, according to ABC 7's Dan Noyes, "is questioning why the Alameda County District Attorney's office has decided to file only misdemeanor battery and false imprisonment charges against suspects." The ladies, awe we use that term loosely, should have seen some sort of felony assault charges.

by Chris Jones

Yesterday, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission voted 10 to 3 to approve $140 million to help pay for the long awaited automated people mover between the Oakland Coliseum BART station and Oakland International Airport. And by long awaited, this writers means he was like a sperm when the idea was first raised back during the misty beginnings of time and space. The entire project is anticipated to cost approximately $522 million and should be completed by 2013.

Part effort to generate revenue and part Bay Area-esque statement, Oakland voters passed a tax on medical marijuana joints, making it the first taxed pot dispensary in the U.S. While the tax "could have the smallest budgetary impact for Oakland," it's a big step for people who want to puff marijuana legally. According to , "people believe it could help legitimize medical marijuana and possibly adult cannabis use in general." Measure F, it seems, "will create a new business class for the dispensaries, which will see a tax increase from $1.20 for every $1,000 in gross sales to $18 per $1,000. It could generate an additional $294,000 a year for the city when it takes effect Jan. 1." This tax, however, won't be nearly enough to help Oakland crawl out of its deep economic rabbit hole.

Yesterday. after two Oakland officers confronted a man on the 1400 block of 16th Avenue a little after 3 p.m., "the suspect pulled out a handgun and started firing at the officers." Which was stupid. Because then, to no one's surprise, the cops shot the man dead. As it turned out, the unidentified 36-year-old dead man also matched the description of a rape suspect. (This, of course, brings to mind suspected rapist Lovelle Mixon, who killed four OPD officers last March before being blown to bits himself.) goes on to report that the OPD officers "were placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard practice" after an officer-involved shooting death.

Well, this is just downright sweet, Beyonce. You don't seem nearly as frosty as some have claimed. The former Destiny's Child frontwoman performed in Oakland this weekend, garnering astounding reviews. Above is a clip of the megagargantuansupersashanova star singing "Say My Name" directly to a delighted fan.

This hilarious Oakland! "promo" by SF sketch comedy group/film production company Killing My Lobster has been making the rounds in recent weeks. Topics such as slow jaywalking, ghostriding, Zachary's vs. Little Star, and East Bay hipsters are covered.

ABC 7 brings us this report about how Oakland may try to solve its budget crisis, in part, by becoming the first city in the nation to directly tax marijuana dispensaries. The city would impose a 1.8% levy, which would mean that the four official pot clubs would have to pay $18 for every $1,000 sold -- currently, through standard business taxes, the city collects $1.20 for every $1,000 sold -- and would potentially raise $400,000 for the coming fiscal year. This measure goes onto a special election ballot being voted on this month.