Articles by Special to The Grapevine

Padres honor Seidler with Holiday Giving Tour

The San Diego Padres kicked off their annual Holiday Giving Tour today, Nov. 25, a do-gooder tradition where they lend a hand to local groups working to support underserved folks around town. This year’s tour gets rolling with a Turkey Distribution event aimed at feeding 1,000 families. Picture this: team players, a broadcaster, and even the CEO, handing out turkeys and Thanksgiving fixings alongside the…


Don’t let scan scams steal your holiday cheer

The holiday season arrives, as inescapable as the tick of the clock, bearing with it an intricate dance of joy, obligation, and the quiet dread of commerce. The streets teem with hurried figures, each one clinging to a wallet or purse, not as an instrument of exchange, but as a fragile barrier against the unseen forces waiting to exploit their haste. For the holiday shopper,…


RB charity with a side of self-congratulation

Ah, Rancho Bernardo Community Foundation—RBCF for the insiders, of course—rolling out the red carpet to pat itself on the back for a solid 36 years of do-goodery. A whopping $90,000 to 24 nonprofits, parceled out like breadcrumbs to keep Rancho Bernardo’s charming little bubble polished and gleaming. Cue the clinking glasses and golf-course applause. Picture it: over 250 attendees at the Annual Thanksgiving Luncheon, because…


On the virtue of supporting The Escondido Grapevine

Dear citizens and patrons of North County, consider this: what is the mark of a flourishing community but the free and unfettered exchange of truth, the illumination of events, and the celebration of voices too often left unheard? Since the year 2015, The Escondido Grapevine has embraced the noble calling to serve as this beacon of truth. We have labored to provide you with journalism…


Esco Police Chief Ed Varso retires, closing storied career

The air in Escondido carries a strange weight today, an odd mix of nostalgia and finality. Chief Ed Varso—yes, the Ed Varso, the man who climbed the law enforcement ladder like a dog on a scent trail—has announced his retirement. December 5 marks the end of an era, or maybe just the curtain call for a long-running, bureaucratic drama that somehow stayed gripping. Varso’s journey…


Art for the 1%: Cunningham’s $10.5M ‘Wing’ House flies

The spiraling dreamscape of Wallace E. Cunningham—an acolyte of the great Frank Lloyd Wright—stands not merely as a home, but as a monument to the unchecked decadence of capital’s aesthetic whims. Perched precariously in the gilded hills of Rancho Santa Fe, this $10.5 million helix of steel, glass, and concrete screams both genius and excess, a Kandinsky nightmare born of privilege and artistic abandon. They…


Big Bucks for a Box: The $38.76M warehouse…that’s not even built yet

You wouldn’t believe the hullabaloo some people make about a slab of concrete, but here goes. Cushman & Wakefield, those bigwig real estate folks, couldn’t wait to puff out their chests and tell the world they helped broker the forward sale of an industrial building in Escondido, California. Fancy name, right? Forward sale. It’s just code for “selling something that’s not even finished yet,” which…


From San Marcos ‘Dressing’ to Thanksgiving

(Editor’s Note: This was the state of the holiday just one year pre-COVID, for those with nostalgia for the way ot was before social distancing and over 770,000 Americans lost their lives…) California supplies the nation’s Thanksgiving tables California ranked #8 in turkey production in the United States (2016), and supplied most of the western states from our poultry farms located in several areas in the state….


If Dostoevsky wrote city of San Marcos civic briefs

Ah, San Marcos—where the drudgery of civic life is dressed in tinsel and pretense, as if the weight of bureaucracy could be concealed beneath the lure of food trucks and twinkling lights. Yes, the city will host a so-called “gourmet” food truck festival alongside Santa’s Magical Village, an event ostensibly designed to distract us from the existential void. From 3 to 8 p.m. on Saturday,…


Trumponomics for those believing a faux businessman

Trump and his administration claimed credit for much of the economic success during his presidency, including the booming economy ahead of the pandemic-induced shutdowns and recession. However, critics have pointed out that much of the economic progress he points to was inherited from former president Barack Obama’sadministration. Trump ran a campaign centered on the promise to Make America Great Again (MAGA).Trump’s tariffs are expected to…