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Last Minute Holiday Gift Guide 2020
Gift local During this second round of stay-at-home orders you can still get holiday gifts from local stores like these BY SUN STAFF There’s nothing like the holiday spirit to pull you out of your COVID-19 shutdown depression! Christmas is still coming, whether you’re ready or not, and there are plenty of local shops that…
Gallery Los Olivos showcases more than 50 artists in annual group show, Winter Salon
Winter Salon premiered at Gallery Los Olivos on Thursday, Dec. 3, and is scheduled to remain on display through Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021. This annual group exhibition showcases works of various media from more than 50 participating artists. The artworks are hung from floor to ceiling, or “salon style,” according to Gallery Los Olivos. “It…
Coast Range in downtown Solvang employs an all-star team of culinary artists
Drilling and hammering noises bled into my Zoom call with Santa Ynez chef Anthony Carron before prompting a change of scenery. “It’s hard to find a quiet place at a construction site,” Carron said while stepping outside of a vacant building in downtown Solvang. The large space, currently being remodeled, was once home to The…
Lompoc Valley Art Association presents Into the Light at Cypress Gallery
As 2020 gradually comes to a close, multimedia artist Kathy Badrak is using her latest exhibition to reflect on, and hopefully heal from, a turbulent year. Presented by the Lompoc Valley Art Association, Into the Light opened on Dec. 4 at the Cypress Gallery and is scheduled to remain on display through Dec. 27. “Into…
The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature hosts its socially distanced Holiday Shopping Weekend
From Friday, Dec. 11, and through Sunday, Dec. 13, the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature in Solvang is hosting special socially distanced holiday shopping opportunities between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day. While the museum itself will remain closed, due to current county and state mandates, the museum’s store will be open for…
The Canary doesn’t get to make up its own facts
Where do I start with the Canary’s Nov. 26 rant, “Way out there”? While this tweety bird is entitled to its opinion, it’s not entitled to its own facts. First there is the fowl’s assertion that the 24th Congressional District “has been blue for its entire existence”; that is patently false (see the 24th District’s…
SoCal-ish
I guess now’s the time for the Central Coast to really come into its own. While Northern Californians like Gov. Gavin Newsom obviously think Santa Barbara and SLO counties are so SoCal, rebellion is brewing. All thanks to the most recent iteration of California’s last-minute COVID-19 guidelines. While the state was split into counties for…
America should now own and turn from its brutal past
Anthropology teaches us that our earliest ancestors were in constant migration on the hunt and search for food in order to survive. About 30,000 years ago, our early ancestors began migrating across the Bering Strait. Between 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, these first migrants continued their journey into what’s now the Americas. Fast forward…
New apartment community keeps life grounded in Santa Maria roots
Santa Maria-style barbecue grills. A modern farmhouse design that pays homage to local agricultural roots. A brand new elementary school and shopping center just steps away. These amenities and benefits come with living at Azure, a recently unveiled apartment rental community in Santa Maria that sits at the heart of the Enos Ranchos development and…
Political Watch: December 10, 2020
• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) voted to pass the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act in the House on Dec. 4. According to a statement from Carbajal’s office, it’s the first time a chamber of Congress has voted to federally decriminalize marijuana. “For too long, our federal marijuana policy has lagged behind…
Tri-Counties ask to be separate in COVID-19 considerations
Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties are banding together in hopes of creating a separate region specifically for the Central Coast. At a press conference on Dec. 3, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced another new system for tracking and slowing California’s currently exploding cases of COVID-19, a process that splits the state up into…
Solvang urgently responds to new state restrictions
The Solvang City Council created an emergency agenda item at its Dec. 7 meeting to respond to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent stay-at-home order and its impacts on the community, ultimately stating that the city wouldn’t be enforcing it. During public comment, residents asked the council to go against the state’s current stay-at-home restrictions, which are…
Community members call for county Sheriff’s Office oversight
On Dec. 1, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors held its third hearing on criminal justice system changes since June, when the item was first introduced following the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed. “The impacts of systemic racism can have dramatic consequences,” 2nd District Supervisor Gregg Hart said as he…
