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Southwest to start flights Monday By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
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Southwest Airlines will begin service out of Santa Barbara Municipal Airport this coming Monday.
Southwest Airlines will begin its service out of Santa Barbara Municipal Airport this coming Monday with an event to welcome the first flight from Las Vegas — complete with a water cannon salute from airport fire trucks. The airline is flying right out of the gate with five nonstop flights to Las Vegas, Oakland and Denver. This allows passengers to continue on to many more cities in the U.S. and even to Hawaii and Mexico. Travel agents and airport
officials hope the low-cost carrier will make airfares from Santa Barbara more competitive as it offers travelers more choices. “It’s very exciting,” Deanna Zachrisson, spokesperson for the airport, told the News-Press Wednesday. “Even if they sell those (first) flights half full, they still will have the largest market share in the Santa Barbara market. It’s fascinating to see how they’re coming and will immediately be the largest carrier.” She said Southwest will add valuable connecting points from Santa Barbara to other popular
cities, with Denver connecting travelers to the eastern side of the country and Oakland connecting travelers to Hawaii. Along with the addition of Southwest flights, she said that American Airlines is adding Chicago service out of Santa Barbara in May, and she believes United Airlines will also add Chicago in June. Alaska Airlines will add daily service to San Diego in June too. “We’ll be up to 11 cities by the end of June,” Ms. Zachrisson said. “That’s a pretty amazing place to be considering where we were a year ago. “Carriers here already, we
Jewelry store opens By ANNELISE HANSHAW NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
By GRAYCE MCCORMICK
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Despite media reports, the 265-acre More Mesa property listed on the market for $50 million is not in escrow yet. Listed as 0 More Mesa Drive, the property went back on the market for $65 million in August 2019. The price was changed to $50 million in September 2020, according to redfin.com and realtor.com, and the sale entered pending status on March 6, 2021, but that information is inaccurate, according to its real estate agent. The property was listed by Taffy Bishara, a real estate agent based in West Covina. He told the News-Press Wednesday that the property is not in escrow, and no offers
Additional U.K. variant found
22 positive cases tied to virus mutation By MADISON HIRNEISEN NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT RAFAEL MALDONADO/NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
Olive Sun, a stylist at gorjana, arranges jewelry at the 1273 Coast Village Road storefront.
At left, customers walk into the newest business on Coast Village Road in Montecito, gorjana. The jewelry store opened April 1. At right, the store is intended to feel like home. It has a variety of stations, like fine jewelry and a custom engraving station.
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Santa Barbara County Public Health officials say the latest report from a UCSB virology lab discovered 22 positive COVID-19 tests associated with the U.K. virus mutation, which accounted for nearly one-third of the tests evaluated in the sample. The health department, in collaboration with Cottage Health and the UCSB Virology Lab, is monitoring the spread of mutations of COVID-19 in the region. In a sample of 67 positive COVID-19 tests from March, researchers discovered 22 tests with the U.K. variant type, 29 tests with the California/West Coast variant type and 16 tests associated with the original COVID-19 virus strain. The discovery comes as federal health experts are sounding the alarm over the spread of the aggressive U.K.
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Dr. Henning Ansorg, the county’s public health officer, said the latest UCSB virology report found 22 positive COVID-19 tests in a sample of 67 that were associated with the U.K. variant. He is encouraging community members to get vaccinated as soon as possible to avoid a case surge.
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have been accepted, despite redfin.com saying the seller has accepted an offer and the property is now pending or under contract. A local land-use consultant affiliated with the current owner, Mark Lloyd, also told the News-Press the property is not in escrow, but that there are two prospective buyers who have put in offers on the property. He said they hope to go into escrow with one of those buyers. He said he didn’t know enough about the buyers to identify anything about them and would need their permission to discuss the matter. Saudi Arabian developer Khalid S. Al Shobily purchased the property in 2012 for $25 million, according to local Please see MORE MESA on A8
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More Mesa property not in escrow
gorjana selects Coast Village Road for newest location A Coast Village Road storefront compelled Gorjana Reidel and Jason Griffin Reidel to open their 19th retail location of their jewelry company gorjana. Prior to opening gorjana at 1273 Coast Village Road last week, they hadn’t acquired a new storefront during the pandemic. Sure, they’d finished pre-existing locations, but the couple stepped back before continuing the brand’s expansion. “Prior to the pandemic, we were doing so much planning. The one thing that the pandemic taught us is to do less planning and just be present in the day to day,” Mr. Reidel told the News-Press. They opened their first store five years ago on a whim in their home city of Laguna Beach, and it was a success. They’ve grown the business to include three stores in New York, one in Scottsdale, Ariz., and 15 locations throughout California. But the Montecito location reminds them of their nexus, Laguna Beach. He describes the two cities as coastal, artisan communities attractive to tourists but with a strong core of locals. Their family loves visiting Montecito and hiking alongside the ocean. He said it’s one of few places that are hard to leave. In November, they took a road trip to enjoy a long weekend in the Santa Barbara and Montecito area. They didn’t plan to look at retail locations, but they made a business connection that contacted the couple when the storefront on Coast Village Road became available. “When the space came up, it felt perfect for our brand,” Mr. Reidel said. “It just felt like the right space.” The storefront felt true to their style, and they transformed it to feel like home. “It was really important to us that if we did a store that it was something we were 100% about,” he said. The pandemic was intimidating to them as business owners, especially with a couple stores in the process of being built. “It’s a little scary because you have these stores, and you don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” Mr. Reidel said.
anticipate, are going to start adding capacity and fighting for that market share … Things are pretty fluid, but fluid in the right direction.” Karen Ensign, an independent travel advisor in Carpinteria, told the News-Press that the cities being served by Southwest are popular for both leisure and business travelers. As of the first week of April, she hadn’t had anyone book service from Southwest to/from Santa Barbara yet, but the airline is quite popular among her other clients
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