The NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard CA issued a red flag warning at 9:53 a.m. on Friday in effect until 6 p.m. The warning is for Ventura County Beaches, Ventura County Inland Coast, Central Ventura County Valleys, Malibu Coast, Los Angeles, Western Santa Monica Mountains Recreational area, Eastern Santa Monica Mountains Recreational area, Calabasas and Agoura Hills, Western San Fernando Valley, Eastern San Fernando Valley, Southeastern Ventura County Valleys, Southern Ventura County Mountains, Northern Ventura County Mountains, Interstate 5 Corridor, Western San Gabriel Mountains and Highway 14 Corridor and Eastern San Gabriel Mountains.

Winds are forecasted to be northeast winds 15 to 25 mph with gusts 40 mph this morning will continue to weaken through this evening. Isolated gusts to 50 mph will continue for another hour or two and relative humidity 5 to 15 percent.

"The current Red Flag Warnings will likely be allowed to expire on time at 6pm today, however a Fire Weather Watch is being considered for Saturday Night through Sunday over much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The latest round of gusty offshore winds have already peaked and will continue to rapidly weaken into the afternoon. The winds will strengthen once again during the day on Saturday then peak Saturday Night into Sunday where gusts of 35 to 50 mph are expected. Isolated gusts of 60 to 70 mph are likely over the San Gabriel Mountains. There is a growing potential for Red Flag Warnings and a Fire Weather Watch will be considered," says the NWS. "If fire ignition occurs, conditions are favorable for very rapid fire spread and extreme fire behavior, including long range spotting, which would threaten life and property."

This warning is in effect until 6 p.m.

A red flag warning indicates that either extreme fire weather conditions are currently happening or will happen soon, as per the NWS. Warm temperatures, very low humidities, and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire to spread rapidly.

During a red flag warning, it is crucial to exercise extreme caution and be prepared to take immediate action in case a fire starts. The NWS offers these steps you can take to lower the risk of fires igniting and ensure your safety:

1. Bolster burn barrel safety:

If burning is authorized in your vicinity, ensure that all burn barrels feature a weighted metal cover with holes no larger than 3/4 of an inch.

2. Responsible disposal of smoking materials:

Prudently discard cigarette butts and avoid flinging cigarettes or matches from a moving vehicle. These seemingly innocuous actions can kindle dry grass, potentially triggering a wildfire.

3. Prudent fire extinguishing practices:

To safeguard against accidental fires, diligently extinguish all outdoor fires. Drown them with an ample amount of water and stir to confirm that everything is cold to the touch. Submerge charcoal in water until it's thoroughly cooled. Never dispose of live charcoal on the ground.

4. Never desert a blaze:

Avoid leaving any fire unattended. Even sparks or embers carried by the wind can ignite nearby leaves or grass, triggering a fire that spreads rapidly.

Understanding the gravity of a red flag warning and adhering to these precautions is pivotal in mitigating the risk of wildfires during these perilous conditions. Prioritize safety, stay well-informed, and act responsibly to safeguard lives and property.

Source: The National Weather Service

This article was generated by the CA Weather Bot, software that analyzes structured information, such as data, and applies it to articles based on templates created by journalists in the newsroom. No human journalist was harmed in this experiment. You can report errors or bugs to mcclatchybot@mcclatchy.com

This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 10:00 AM.

There’s a new coffee shop in town — and this one will let you print a photo of your face right in the foam of your latte.

Dulce Cafe opened Jan. 3 in Grover Beach, priding itself on its specialty Mexican drinks as well as some trendy new tech.

Owners Erik Rocha and Fernando Herrera told The Tribune they felt something was missing in the South County city, and thought of a Mexican coffee shop.

“It was important to us to bring something a little different to Grover Beach, meaning a Mexican-themed cafe,” Rocha said. “There’s not really anything in Grover Beach area that has that, so we wanted to incorporate a lot of our traditional Mexican candies into our lattes.”

The shop at 191 S. Oak Blvd. is not their first business venture: They both run Papi’s Hot Chicken food truck in Santa Maria.

“We’ve been friends forever,” Rocha said. “We started our food truck and then we started this, and it plays a bigger role, we give each other credit and everything.”

Dulce Cafe brings a “warm touch” beyond its specialty drinks with a unique machine that creates latte art from any photo, according to Rocha.

Customers can scan the QR code in the coffee shop and upload any picture from their phones for an eccentric, highly customized drink, Rocha said.

“There’s nothing around here like that,” Rocha said. “We’re kind of the first ones in the area to bring something different besides our authentic Mexican flavors in our coffees. I feel like it adds a warm touch to it — and it’s super cool.”

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Dulce Cafe has all the classics: Americanos, cappuccinos and lattes. But its specialty lattes are the crowdpleasers, according to Rocha.

The coffee shop’s specialty lattes contain traditional Mexican candies, Rocha said.

The menu includes the mazapán latte, a drink with the traditional peanut-based candy, a Duvalín latte containing a mix of three chocolates and the cajeta latte, a dulce de leche drink.

For a small bite, Dulce also, of course, serves pan dulce, an authentic Mexican sweet bread and tortas de jamón.

For traditional coffees, price range from $4 to $6, while specialty drinks cost from $7 to $9. A mini pan dulce is $1.50 while a full size is $2. Tortas go for $9.99, according to Rocha.

Dulce Cafe is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 191 S. Oak Park Blvd. #1 in Grover Beach.

Bad news for local Kohl’s Cash hoarders.

The retail chain plans to close more than two dozen “underperforming” stores across the country — including its San Luis Obispo location.

In a news release Thursday, the company announced plans to close 27 of its more than 1,150 locations as it looks to streamline business amid a disappointing financial year.

In addition to 10 stores in California, the Wisconsin-based company announced it will close 17 more stores in other states across the nation as well.

Net sales for the chain dropped by 8.8% in the third quarter of 2024, falling to $3.5 billion, according to the company’s most recent earnings report.

Company stock declined from around $29 a share in April 2024 to around $13.50 as of Thursday.

CEO Tom Kingsbury meanwhile plans to step down later this month.

“We always take these decisions very seriously,” Kingsbury said in the Thursday release. “As we continue to build on our long-term growth strategy, it is important that we also take difficult but necessary actions to support the health and future of our business for our customers and our teams.”

According to the release, all store associates have been informed “and offered a competitive severance package or the ability to apply to other open roles at Kohl’s.”

“Kohl’s thanks our associates for their work and is working to support our associates during this transition,” the release said.

All 27 of the locations are slated to close by April.

The company also planned to close its fulfillment center in San Bernardino, according to the release, costing 690 jobs.

Kohl’s currently operates two stores in San Luis Obispo County.

The Paso Robles store, located at 100 Niblick Road in the Woodland Plaza shopping center, was not among those slated for closure.

The San Luis Obispo store, located at 205 Madonna Road, however, will close as part of the company’s streamlining.

The retail chain opened in the 62,000-square-foot spot in Madonna Plaza in 2009. It replaced what was previously a Mervyns after Kohl’s acquired several former chain’s stores in bankruptcy proceedings.

The closure comes as other large retailers have also shut their doors in the same area.

In December, Party City announced it was closing all of its locations after failing to fully come back from bankruptcy.

That included the Madonna Plaza store at 271 Madonna Road that opened only two years ago.

Next door, the space that once housed athleisure and underwear brand Aerie has been empty since it closed in 2023.

Stretching further back, Bed, Bath & Beyond closed in the nearby SLO Promenade shopping center in 2023, and has remained vacant since.

San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jim Dantona said the closure was “disappointing” but also noted that it “says less about the business opportunity in San Luis Obispo and more about better meeting the market demand by keeping Kohl’s stores in Paso Robles and Santa Maria open that can serve the San Luis Obispo community.”

“I would imagine that closure also creates the opportunity for stores like Target, Nordstrom Rack and Costco to pick up that market demand, or a new small business to meet that need,” he added.

John Lindt contributed to this report. He is the editor of news website Sierra2theSea.net.

This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 5:34 PM.

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There are legal victories, and then there are legal victories—court rulings so decisive, so sharply written, that they can only be considered a judicial knockout.

Case in point: Al Hadian and Ralph Bookout’s New Year’s Eve victory against the California Coastal Commission.

Al and Ralph sued the Commission in 2022 with Pacific Legal Foundation’s help. If you’re unfamiliar with the California Coastal Commission, consider yourself lucky: The powerful land use agency controls 1.5 million acres of land, blocks development arbitrarily, has punished Elon Musk for his political views, imposes multimillion-dollar fines, can delay projects for years, and wields its authority so recklessly that The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel once accused the Commission of “pull[ing] a Saddam.”

Al and Ralph never should have been in the Commission’s crosshairs. The two men have owned neighboring properties in San Luis Obispo County for over twenty years. Their properties aren’t developed—yet—but they’ve been hooked up to water service since 2001.

Here’s why that’s important: The County, worried about limited water supply, imposed a moratorium on new municipal water customers (effectively pausing all new development), but it included an exception for any landowners for whom the district had promised to provide water before the moratorium. Al and Ralph, paying for water service since 2001, qualify. When Al and Ralph applied for development permits, San Luis Obispo County granted them.

The problem? The California Coastal Commission swooped in, appealed the County’s decision to itself, and reversed the permit approvals. So Al and Ralph have been unable to build on their properties, even though the County said they could.

Let’s look at what the Superior Court for the County of San Luis Obispo thought about that.

The opening paragraph of the court’s ruling in Hadian v. California Coastal Commission—authored by Judge Michael C. Kelley—is a thing of beauty:

Ralph Waldo Emerson chided rigid thinkers with his oft-quoted aphorism that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” But consistency can have its virtues and one place where its salutary attributes are most important (and particularly deserving of judicial protection) is in the interpretation of our laws by administrative agencies.

The California Coastal Commission acted “in derogation of the legal/regulatory history of these parcels,” Judge Kelley continues. (Derogation is an excellent word; everyone should use it more.) The reversal of Al and Ralph’s permit approvals was “based on a misinterpretation of the governing legal provisions” of the County’s Local Coastal Program (LCP).

The California Coastal Commission had argued that its interpretation of the LCP was entitled to deference—that the court should simply defer to what the Commission says it’s authorized to do. Not so: “As a threshold matter, the Court rejects as unfounded the Commission’s contention that its construction of the LCP is entitled to deference,” Judge Kelley writes.

After going through the facts of the case—and noting that ten lots in Al and Ralph’s subdivision were previously developed with residences “without objection from the Commission”—Judge Kelley writes that the Commission’s actions in this case were “infected by fundamental legal error in the Commission’s interpretation of the County’s LCP.”

He continues:

As noted, the Commission contends the Court should defer to its interpretation of the LCP, but the authorities it relies upon do not apply in a situation such as this, where the Commission’s interpretation conflicts with the County’s interpretation of its own LCP, and where the County’s interpretation is more consistent with the language and the practical construction given to that language over the years, including evidence that the Commission has historically agreed with the County’s interpretation.

He also says the Commission’s interpretation of the County’s Public Works policy is “simply wrong,” and that the way the Commission paraphrases the policy in its brief is “a misleading characterization.” Drilling into what the policy actually says, Judge Kelley notes that its language “strongly weighs against the Commission’s interpretation because it would lead to absurd results.”

The entire ruling is worth reading. For more on the California Coastal Commission, you can also read about our upcoming argument at the California Supreme Court in Shear Development.

Sophia Villalba

Sophia is your community news reporter covering the North Coast of San Luis Obispo County, including Los Osos, Morro Bay, Cayucos, Cambria and San Simeon.

Local fire agencies including the Morro Bay Fire Department and CAL FIRE units across San Luis Obispo County have sent personnel to Southern California to help fight the multiple wildfires burning in the Los Angeles area.

“We typically have a type three engine here at Avila Beach. One of those engines has gone with the OES strike team down south on the Palisades Fire. We also have engine 40 from Santa Margarita that left with that strike team,” said Ryan Grebe, San Luis Obispo County CAL FIRE PIO. “Earlier last night we had five CAL FIRE type three engines that went out to the Hurst Fire.”

For local fire agencies, it’s all about balance.

“We’re sending a lot of engines, but we’re trying to make sure that we can also backfill and protect San Luis County if anything happens here,” Grebe said.

“We always want our home base covered. We always want firefighters here to cover for any issues back here,” said Morro Bay Deputy Fire Chief Matt Vierra.

Morro Bay Fire, Paso Robles Fire, and other cities are also helping with firefighting efforts down south.

“We have an engine from San Luis City, an engine from Atascadero, an engine from here in Morro Bay. Each engine usually has four personnel,” Vierra said.

With it being the offseason for wildfires, Vierra says that means they’re without seasonal firefighters.

“That’s why you see resources being pulled from all over the state. We just got notified there’s resources coming out of Oregon to help cover California while everybody is down south,” Vierra said.

And it could be a while until local crews return. Grebe says units typically return to their home county one to two weeks after the initial fire starts.

“A lot of the firefighting ends but there’s also a lot of mop up and patrol that needs to happen to ensure that fire is completely out,” Grebe said.

He says there are no concerns locally as of right now.

“The majority of the high winds are down in Southern California, so we are looking pretty good, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of fire season. We still have low humidity and some winds that are coming through the county, so we want everyone to stay vigilant,” Grebe said.

The Santa Maria Fire Department also sent two crews to Los Angeles County to help with fire suppression and evacuations.

"I received a text from the strike team leader last night in the evening stating that our crew from Santa Maria Fire Department, the crew from engine 305 made a positive impact, actually saving an elderly female in a home that was burning, an elderly female who was bedridden in a burning home," said Chief Brad Dandridge.

Dandridge added that while eight firefighters from the department are now in Southern California, all local responsibilities continue to be met.

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