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SB police chief confirms 2017 complaint Barber doubles down on claims against PIO despite refutation By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
A local barbershop owner is set to meet with interim Santa Barbara Police Chief Bernard Melekian next week in connection with a recent Los Angeles Magazine article. In the aftermath of the article published March 12, Anthony Wagner, the public information officer for the Santa Barbara Police Department, has been placed on leave. In addition, an outside independent
investigation will be conducted into his relationship with Golden State Greens, a demand of retraction was issued by the PIO in question, and Classic Barber Shop owner George Trujillo is meeting with Chief Melekian on Monday. The magazine article shares the complaints of Mr. Trujillo, who alleges that back in 2017, Mr. Wagner was wearing a police ID and bullied a 7-Eleven store clerk and the barber himself, and received no punishment for doing so. The piece — which was written by
former Nickelodeon television writer and producer Mitchell Kriegman — also alleges that Mr. Wagner awarded cannabis dispensary licenses for the city. Mr. Kriegman, a Santa Barbara resident, declined to comment on his reporting. Mr. Wagner sent a “demand for retraction of false and defamatory material” to Los Angeles Magazine, and he refuted specific lines quoted in the article. The News-Press reached out to Los Angeles Magazine for comment on the demand for retraction, but received no
response by deadline. Chief Melekian confirmed to the NewsPress on Friday that, regarding the incident that occurred at 7-Eleven in 2017, Mr. Wagner was in civilian clothes and not wearing any sort of badge. Rather, he was wearing his department ID card on his lanyard, Chief Melekian said. “To the best of my knowledge, there is no policy against it (wearing an ID outside of work), nor is there any allegations that he flashed it.” The interim chief also confirmed
Encampment cleanup City of Santa Barbara, CalTrans clear homeless camps
that only the profanity portion of the complaint was sustained. In addition, video evidence showed that Mr. Wagner did not hover over Mr. Trujillo as he alleged, according to the chief. “It shows that he never left the area of the register and then he walked out of the store,” Chief Melekian said. The interim chief added that video evidence does indicate that somebody saw Mr. Wagner’s ID and said, “He’s a cop,” but noted that Mr. Wagner did not appear to Please see PIO on A2
From dancing to dining
KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
EOS Lounge transformed from a nightclub into practically a restaurant over the course of the pandemic to stay open.
Local nightclub adjusts business model to remain open during pandemic By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
RAFAEL MALDONADO / NEWS-PRESs
All the homeless encampments were cleared out of De la Guerra Plaza this past week. Many individuals who camped there had housing vouchers, and temporary housing opened up for them.
By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Cleanup efforts are under way again in Santa Barbara. Three homeless encampments were cleaned out around the Castillo on- and offramps to Highway 101 on Monday, along with all the encampments downtown on De la Guerra Plaza, among others. The city’s contractors loaded the trash into trucks while CalTrans controlled traffic to keep the contractors safe as they did it. According to René Eyerly, the city’s environmental services manager, many of the individuals who camped out at De la Guerra Plaza were waiting for housing to open up, and it finally did. “CityNet has been working with that group for quite a while, and most of them were already in client management and were awaiting housing,” she told the News-Press. Regarding highway cleanup, she said the city has always been doing trash-only cleanup work, but because of CDC guidance, encampments aren’t able to be broken up. Historically, she said CalTrans had “very limited resources” so they were not able to come to Santa Barbara often enough to do regular litter cleanup, much less encampment cleanup. So the city teamed up with CalTrans a few years ago to help efforts, which Ms. Eyerly
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said was “working well until COVID,” which changed it all. “For the last year, CalTrans was refusing any access to their property including the trash-only encampment cleanups which we were doing on city property,” she said. “Most of the encampments we see from the highway are on either Union Pacific property or CalTrans property, so it’s a bit of a challenge. That’s why the city has taken leadership to ensure that the cleanups are happening, so it has taken a few months of conversation with CalTrans to get them to agree again to allow us onto their property.” The city then demonstrated that it had “thoughtful protocols in place about how to do the work safely and not displace the encampments,” Ms. Eyerly said. The plan was agreeable to both sides, so efforts resumed. Ms. Eyerly added that the city is “quite sympathetic” to CalTrans’ decision to refuse access to their property, but the city aims to get the encampment cleaning back on a regular schedule. “We’re looking to see some improvements in that area going forward,” she said. The crews now have their sights set on clearing out the Garden Street encampments, along with Milpas Street encampments in the coming weeks. The CDC outlines criteria for encampment cleanup during COVID-19,
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email: gmccormick@newspress.com
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permitting it in certain situations, such as extreme public health concerns, nuisance and fire hazards. “But part of that important function is having social services and shelter and housing offered well in advance so that those who are living in those camps that are really dangerous situations have adequate time to move out of them,” Ms. Eyerly said. All in all, the manager said the shelters are still having challenges with capacity because of the social distancing that needs to occur within them. She said that while the city is seeing improvement on trash and sanitary issues, the main focus right now is temporary housing solutions. “Shelters certainly need more long-term, permanent housing, but the really critical piece is getting that temporary housing in place so that people can move out of the open environment and have a safe roof over their heads while they wait for permanent housing,” Ms. Eyerly said. “The pipeline for housing is still always challenging, but we do have a number of those who are unhoused who have housing vouchers, and we are waiting for the spots to open up. “It’s really important for CityNet to maintain that contact, even while they’re living out on the street, until that spot opens. That’s what’s starting to happen.”
The idea of dancing shoulderto-shoulder in a sweaty, dimly lit nightclub and crowding around the bar to order a cocktail has been completely diminished by the COVID-19 pandemic. Lounges and nightclubs were faced with the decision to either pivot their business model, buy tables and chairs and figure out how to serve food, or to simply shut down operations. EOS Lounge, at the corner of Haley and Anacapa streets, accepted the challenge of turning its typical standing-room only setup to mimic that of a restaurant. According to EOS owner Bix Kaufman, the iconic Santa Barbara nightclub will be able to weather the storm, but the biggest hurdle of all is meeting customers’ expectations. “We are not allowed to have any dancing. We haven’t had any dancing this whole time,” he told the News-Press. “It’s definitely, I would say, a shift in people’s expectations … Places like us and Wildcat, we have the biggest challenge because people have expectations that they’re going to a nightclub, but when they get here, they realize we’re serving food and we’re not a nightclub and not dancing.” The owner said that without a kitchen, it was a “battle on its own” to figure out how to adjust the venue. The club has been using two different food vendors
— State Street’s Buena Onda Empanadas and Delicioso, a local Mediterranean food truck. Logistically, he had to purchase lots of tables and chairs for the requirement that every customer must be seated. “We’ve never even had proper servers before,” Mr. Kaufman said. “Operating with servers is definitely different for us versus people walking up and ordering a drink at the bar.” The owner also had to hire additional bouncers and security, saying that another trial for the club has been the expectation of EOS employees to control customers in the surrounding areas of the building, which is public property, if they’re waiting in line or just not seated yet. “A lot of difficulty comes from the people’s freedom to gather and do as they want in public space,” he said. “It’s a logistical nightmare trying to control really enthusiastic people that want to get into a restaurant and bar … Because it is a public space, people have expectations that they can do whatever they want.” Mr. Kaufman said EOS received a warning from the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department via email during the first week in June when things first opened back up. He said the guidelines remained fairly unclear during the first month or so that businesses were able to reopen,and he noted specific confusion about businesses having Please see nightclub on A4
Obituaries............. A6 Sudoku................. A3 Weather................ A6
Wednesday’s SUPER LOTTO: 10-13-19-22-46 Meganumber: 10
Friday’s DAILY 4: 2-4-9-7
Friday’s MEGA MILLIONS: 9-14-40-58-69 Meganumber: 8
Friday’s FANTASY 5: 8-19-23-29-33
Friday’s DAILY DERBY: 01-10-06 Time: 1:46.69
Wednesday’s POWERBALL: 34-38-42-61-62 Meganumber: 19
Friday’s DAILY 3: 0-2-4 / Sunday’s Midday 3-2-4