Ice cream shop owner calls for calm instead of conflict

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• South County Beat: Volunteers give kids a Head Start

  South County Beat: Volunteers give kids a Head Start

  Young children were getting their faces painted and receiving balloon animals. Santa Claus was taking requests from children seated on his lap. A very merry party for South County children enrolled in the Five Cities Head Start program was under way Dec. 3 at the Women’s Club in Arroyo Grande.

  Stan Garland, 81, of Arroyo Grande and president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 639 Retirees Club, was himself very merry as he watched the children, parents and staff from the Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo County and other union members interact at the event, which included a nutritious breakfast and ended with ice cream donated by Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab.

  “We get enjoyment looking at the kids’ happy faces,” Stan said. He said that about 30 years ago, he and other members decided “we should contribute something to the community.” They wanted to “donate our time and raise money.” Many of the local children’s parents were working in the fields.

• Letters to the Editor 12/25

  Letters to the Editor 12/25

  New Christmas lyrics

  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;

  Everywhere I go.

• South County Beat: School kids cheer on veteran riders

  South County Beat: School kids cheer on veteran riders

  Four years ago, Oceano Elementary School teacher Jim DeCecco was reading Bicycling Magazine when he came across an advertisement for a program that uses cycling to help injured veterans rehabilitate physically and mentally.

  The Ride 2 Recovery program offers several bike rides, including a multi-day event down California’s coast. DeCecco, who commutes to work by bike, contacted Ride 2 Recovery President John Wordin and learned the riders would head down Highway 1, through Pismo Beach and Oceano.

  After a few more calls, DeCecco lined up Oceano and Shell Beach elementary students to cheer for about 85 veterans. The following year, the students waved at 120 riders.

• South County Beat: A.G. Village has its own little theater

  South County Beat: A.G. Village has its own little theater

  The Spot is a new little theater in the Arroyo Grande Village. It’s housed within The Studio of Performing Arts on East Branch Street next to Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab. A large, bright electronic marquee on the building announces the theater to people entering the Village from the west.

  Jake McGuire opened The Spot in February. His “dream of theater overnight became an opportunity” when he became owner of The Spot.

  He switched the stage and the seating, constructing walls and a whole new lighting system, creating a new space for performers and the audience.

• Letters to the Editor 9/13

  Letters to the Editor 9/13

  Political tyranny

  Is America still a country “of the people, by the people, and for the people?” Not anymore. Forty-one senators and 236 representatives — almost all Republicans — have signed a pledge to vote according to the dictates of a private lobbying group called Americans for Tax Reform.

  During the recent debt-ceiling “crisis,” ATR’s leader, Grover Norquist, actually told GOP “loyalists” what they were allowed to support. To heck with what’s good for the economy or what the average voter wanted. The GOP obeyed its puppet master, ATR, which almost put our country into default to achieve its political goals.