Cover Story
Skin you’re in: Estheticians on the Central Coast beautify skin with techniques old and new
As Alana Silva hovers over a client in her cozy Santa Maria beauty salon, she is armed with a powerful wand that makes a noise like something between a quiet buzz and a zap. Looking like she’s ready to powerwash a window, Silva, a professional esthetician, is actually performing a highly sophisticated procedure that will…
Local trainer leads Birthfit classes for pregnant women
When Alexandra Klein, a local Crossfit coach and fitness trainer, decided to start a family, she knew she didn’t want to abandon her workout routine. But lifting kettle bells and dumbbells while pregnant goes against the first advice everyone receives from their doctor about pregnancy: don’t lift anything heavy. “I enjoyed lifting heavy weights, and…
Losing it: Dieting trends for 2018
It’s January, which means many of us who spent 2017 glowering over our beer bellies at the growing number on the bathroom scale are trying to keep our New Year’s resolutions to shed a few pounds and get back in shape. In 2018, dieting trends range from the sensible to the downright bizarre (bugs, anyone?)…
Organist Thomas Joyce to perform century-spanning concert for Santa Ynez series
The organ is a beast of an instrument. Several ranks of keyboards stacked on one another, dozens of stops, and the large floor pedals are all wrestled under the fingers and feet of musicians like Thomas Joyce. As the featured performer for the Santa Ynez Valley Classical Music Series, Joyce will perform organ classics from…
Canary speaks with forked beak
I must take issue with remarks from the Canary in the Jan. 18 edition of the Sun (“Take it seriously”). I don’t understand how someone who obviously voted for a community organizer with only a little under three years’ experience in politics and campaigned with the vague “hope and change” slogan, has any room to…
Spotlight on: Skincare by Alanna celebrates four-year anniversary
A little more than four years ago, Alanna Silva opened her own business. Fast forward to the present, and she is celebrating nearly a half decade of operation, with plans to stay in business for many years to come. “I made so many mistakes in the beginning,” she told the Sun, “but I think I’ve…
Guadalupe City Council approves affordable housing project only open to farmworkers
Low-income farmworkers and their families will soon have another affordable housing option in Guadalupe, where a lack of adequate lodging has long troubled the community at large, especially employees of the farming industry. The Guadalupe City Council approved a change to an existing development agreement after a public hearing on Jan. 9 with Peoples’ Self-Help…
Santa Maria approves four-story mixed-use development downtown
A four-story mixed-use development project proposed for the center of downtown Santa Maria was approved by the City Council after a public hearing on Jan. 16. The project, which will be built on an existing lot at 101 North Broadway, will include a 3,300 square-foot ground floor for commercial uses, with storefronts facing Broadway, and…
Porn addiction begins early
Parents, buckle up. The statistics are brutal: • The average age of first exposure to pornography is 9. • One out of every 10 visitors to a porn site is younger than 10. • 10 percent of seventh graders worry that they might be addicted to porn. • 64 percent of 13- to 24-year-olds actively…
What do you do to stay healthy?
Armando Pantoja student “Exercise by running and working out and eating healthy.” Laura Pavlich assistant manager at Crunch Gym “Making working out part of my routine, making sure that nothing gets in the way of that, even if I have to go extra early in the morning or stay late at night. Also, making sure…
Political Watch 1/25/18
• Gov. Jerry Brown signed an official proclamation naming Jan. 22 a Day of Remembrance of the Montecito Mudslides, which ordered state flags to be flown at half-staff at the state Capitol. “As we remember those we lost in this disaster, we should also remember the injured, the missing, and the survivors who may need…
Community Health Centers promote oral hygiene for kids with Brush! Brush! Brush! program
An alligator may seem like an unlikely role model for immaculate oral hygiene. But many local children receive their first dental cleanings at school, where an alligator, also known as Dr. Joseph Mercardante, teaches them to “open wide” through the Community Health Centers’ (CHC) Brush! Brush! Brush! program. The program, according to CHC Director of…
A-Ru in Buellton is solid sushi in a casual yet elegant environment
Every time my fiance and I take a trip down to Los Angeles or Santa Barbara, we always stop in Solvang on the way back (usually for “supplies,” aka wine). For the last few months, I’ve noticed a cute shopping center tucked off the main drag of East Highway 246 in Buellton. I always point…
Humor: Rebecca Rose calls out the cat people in her life
I have a very important note to all the dear sweet wonderful so-called cat people in my life: Please shut up about your dumb cats. I do not care about your cats. At all. I do not care that Fluffy “talks” to you when you come home from work. I do not care that Mr.…
PCPA presents resident artists’ talk
Pacific Conservatory Theatre (PCPA) resident artists Kitty Balay and Brad Carroll (pictured) are set to host a behind-the-scenes presentation on the start of their acting careers on Jan. 27 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Severson Theater at Allan Hancock College, 800 S. College, Santa Maria. Attendees can learn how Balay and Carroll handled…
Valley Art Gallery features new show
Artist Heidi Gruetzemacher hosts a reception for her new show opening on Feb. 2 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Valley Art Gallery in Orcutt. Gruetzemacher is an artist, photographer, and owner of the Frame Gallery in Old Orcutt. “I am interested in exploring new ideas that open my creative mind to the path…
Santa Maria library hosts local authors
Wendelin Van Draanen (author of the Sammy Keyes mystery series) and Mark Parsons (author of Road Rash) are the keynote speakers at the For the Love of Books fundraiser for the Santa Maria Public Library Foundation. The event is Feb. 11 from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Santa Maria Public Library, where the married…
Second life: Ben Riddering turns discarded tree roots into sculptures
In the back left corner of an RV Park in Arroyo Grande stands a hulking, industrial steel box of a building. It doesn’t look like much, but inside, woodworker and sculptor Ben Riddering is toiling away to give discarded scraps of wood a second life. The whirring of a chainsaw fills the air. Wearing a…
Steven Wright brings his deadpan comedy to Chumash Casino
Comedian Steven Wright is counting coughs. During his talk with the Sun, Wright jokes about his interviewer’s lingering cough from a bout with the flu. “That’s five coughs,” he declares, with a giddy laugh. “I just like to count things.” An icon cited by dozens of comics as their biggest influence, Wright doesn’t exude any…
Annie Ackert
Santa Ynez Valley High School’s Annie Ackert has veteran-level water polo experience despite her young years—and despite only picking up the sport as a freshman. As a sophomore, the now-junior utility player put in two goals in the 2017 CIF Southern Section Division 7 championship game, helping lead the Pirates to their first-ever title. The…
Righetti and Lompoc boys, Santa Ynez girls climb prep soccer standings
On a very chilly soccer field at Pioneer Valley High School on Jan. 19, two crosstown rivals clashed until things got heated. With fourth place at stake in the PAC-8 standings, the Pioneer Valley and Righetti high school varsity boys battled it out in a rough, high-intensity match under the lights. Both teams’ goalkeepers suffered…
Read my beak
I’m surprised it took this long, I honestly am, but I can finally say it: I’ve got a Trumpian nickname. Thanks to Justin Ruhge, my buddy from Lompoc, you can now call me the “Yellow Canary” if I write anything you don’t like. But Ruhge isn’t the only one upset with me! Another Lompoc Valley…
Trustees approve funding and improvements to Allan Hancock College Police Department
The Allan Hancock College Police Department dodged a major blow on Jan. 16, when the Hancock Community College District board of trustees voted unanimously to fund much-needed improvements to the troubled department. After several assessments of the police department’s practices, various meetings, and a thorough look into possible funding and systematic solutions, board members voted…
Lompoc Police say car thefts not a trend
If you visit the Lompoc Police Department’s website or use its smartphone app, you’ll notice five of the last six reports concern car theft. While the number may seem high for such a short span of time (10 days), Sgt. Kevin Martin told the Sun they were no cause for alarm. “As far as the…
Climate science warnings coming true
From the BBC, the picture of tomorrow that climate scientists warned about for years has arrived. South Africa is rationing water to residents. California and the American West is not far behind South Africa. Yet politicians do nothing to protect our national security threatened by fossil-fuel-caused global warming. The fossil fuel lobby is just too…
Rebuttal to rebuttal
The editors of the Jan. 18 issue of the Sun allowed my small conservative rebuttal letter (“Trump’s bluster gets things done”) to be published in response to the liberal McCalip’s big op-ed (“Trump’s bluster makes U.S. unsafe,” Jan. 11). So thanks for that. But then, in the next column over, the Yellow Canary assailed me…
This we need in the White House?
Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole” countries, a disgrace to the White House and the Congress, and sheds a shameful image on Democracs and Republicans alike, on the overall American people, on humanity in general, and particularly on honorable and good people-in-need of the nations referred to. And this is a role…
Democrats will bleed you dry
For all of you that have received your new mortgage payments, car insurance premiums, and obvious increase at the gas pump, get used to it. The Democrats of this state will bleed you for all your worth and then a little more. Of course it’s for the good of all the people of the great…
Former Church for Life pastors facing sexual battery and harassment lawsuit
A Santa Maria church and two of its former senior pastors are facing a sexual battery, harassment, assault, and gender violence civil lawsuit that was filed anonymously by a churchgoer in July 2017. The plaintiff, listed as Jane Doe in court documents, alleges that Robert and Cindy Litzinger, who left Church For Life in 2016…
County slowly lifts evacuation orders for Montecito
Santa Barbara County lifted evacuation orders for parts of Montecito on Jan. 23, primarily for the western side of the exclusion zone that emergency responders put in place in the days following the winter storm that brought rains and mudslides that battered the wealthy oceanside community. “We are fully prepared to take care of those…
