Life Is a Bit Easier When You Can Call the Shots

Mean streets of Encinitas.

The blocks around the shopping center-laden intersection of Encinitas Boulevard and El Camino Real are to traffic control what Medusa was to hairstyling.

Cars going every which way. People learning to cope.

Which brings us to a nearby nicely paved, two-lane street off El Camino Real called Via Molena.

It’s been used by customers of a strip mini-mall called El Camino Square: a carpet shop, a video store, Olde Discount Stockbroker, optometrist Norman Ratner, bagel shop, barbecued chicken place, etc.

The street also leads to the Encinitas substation of the Sheriff’s Department.

Cars turning left off Via Molena into the parking lot in front of El Camino Square have been known to block cars going to or from the sheriff’s station.

A few months ago, the Sheriff’s Department got tired of coping.

It solved its problem by putting up 50 “paddles,” three-foot barriers, down the middle of Via Molena.

Drivers could no longer turn left on Via Molena into the parking lot.

The Sheriff’s Department could erect the barriers because Via Molena is not a city street. It’s owned by the Sheriff’s Department, since before cityhood.

Ratner and others complained that the move left only one entrance to the parking lot: off super-busy El Camino Real.

And what’s worse, it prevented cars that can’t find a parking space in the front parking lot from using Via Molena to get to a larger lot behind the mall.

El Camino Square tenants see frustrated would-be customers driving away, possibly never to return. The leasing agent says the situation makes it hard to find new tenants.

Capt. Bob Apostolas, in charge of the Encinitas substation, has reviewed (and rejected) the suggestions of an engineering consultant hired by the building manager

“It’s unfortunate, but I can’t, in good conscience, continue a situation that could be dangerous,” he said.

The city of Encinitas refuses to get involved; the decision rests wholly with the Sheriff’s Department.

“It’s like their own fiefdom there,” said Ratner.

Out of the Pool

Here and there.

* A jury has just been picked in the cross-burning trial in Los Angeles of Fallbrook racist Tom Metzger.

One jury candidate, an emeritus professor of physics from Occidental College, was asked by the judge if he had any adult children.

“The expression ‘adult children’ is an oxymoron,” sniffed the professor.

The Times’ Steve Harvey reports that a suspicious court officer felt the professor might be trying to insult the judge and so he quietly asked a court-watcher what oxymoron means.

By any definition, the professor was bounced from the jury pool.

* Robert Spaulding, who quit as San Diego planning director amid the $100,000 sex scandal, has yet to land a new job. Both his home and boat are up for sale.

* Press releases I released immediately, from a San Diego boiler firm: “Congress Approves Agreement for Iowa Power Pressurized Circulating Fluidized Bed Demonstration Project.”

* Karma flip-flop.

The San Diego unit of Hare Krishnas, which had stopped selling T-shirts from sidewalk stands because of bad vibes, has decided to resume sales to raise money for its meals-for-the-needy program.

But not in areas where locals are considered grouchiest: Pacific Beach, La Jolla Cove and Old Town.

* North County bumper sticker, on a white Volvo: “My Keys Are On the Front Seat, By My Rottweiler.”

Don’t Lick the Icing

Piece of cake.

Three sailors have been assigned today to carefully escort a huge chocolate cake (2-feet-by-6-feet) from the Hotel Del Coronado to North Island.

The hotel is donating the cake for the civic gala celebrating this afternoon’s scheduled arrival of the command-and-control ship Coronado, newly transferred from Pearl Harbor.

The cake sailors made a dry run Friday.

A Navy van with extra-strong shock absorbers has been selected to transport the cake.

So important is the assignment it even has an unofficial code name: Operation Three Men and a Baby.