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TheHealdsburg HealdsburgTribune Tribune The Enterprise & Scimitar Enterprise & Scimitar
Visit for daily updates on local news views www.healdsburgtribune.com for daily updates on local news andand views Our 159th year,Visit Number 52 www.healdsburgtribune.com Healdsburg, California
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GOINGS ON IN TOWN THIS HOLIDAY SEASON
Healdsburg, California Healdsburg, California
December 26, 2024 Date, Date, 20202020
THURSDAY, DEC. 26
Hanukkah
Join a community candle lighting on Thursday, Dec. 26, organized by the new organization Jewish Healdsburg. Gather in the Plaza beginning at 5pm for the lighting of the second candle of the menorah at 5:30pm. The Hanukkah celebration will continue until 7pm at Acorn Café. All are welcome, please RSVP at jewishhealdsburg.org/rsvp.
FRIDAY, DEC. 27
Blues Revue
Weekend at Bernie’s
Start the weekend off right at the Elephant as Weekend at Bernie’s plays rock, funk and R&B. The wellseasoned quintet plays the Elephant in the Room on Friday night, 8-11pm. Cover is $10 at the door, 177 Healdsburg Ave.
SATURDAY, DEC. 28
Second Story
A rare Saturday concert at the Second Story stage with singer-songwriter Sean Hayes, a veteran of Irish to R&B bands and styles. Tickets are $35, from 7-10pm, at Little Saint, 25 North St., littlesainthealdsburg.com.
Lobby Jazz
Congratulations on surviving another Christmas, now just hang out in the Hotel Healdsburg lobby for a while as the Trevor Kinsel Trio delivers jazz standards with a twist. The bassist is joined by Lauren “Spike” Klein on drums and Ian Scherer on guitar. Music 6-9pm, no cover, limited menu available, 25 Matheson St. ➝ Holiday Happenings, 2
Photo by Rick Tang
Here’s something a little different for the tasting room: a blues revue called RambleTone at Furthermore Wines on Friday night, from 5:30-8:30pm. No cover, 328-A Healdsburg Ave.
TIME TRAVELERS? Explorers of Jessica Martin’s ‘aerocene’ of recycled plastic bags, the centerpiece of the second Climate Fest in the Plaza, April 2024.
Top 5 Local Stories of 2024 ANOTHER WILD RIDE AROUND THE SUN BRINGS US BACK WHERE WE STARTED By Simone Wilson
There’s a tradition in the news biz, at year’s end, of retracing all the major stories that unfolded during the 12 months prior. It feels like a healthy exercise—an opportunity to zoom out and let the bigger picture sink in, free from the frantic 24hour news cycle (or, weekly in our case). It’s also a great reminder, though smalltown life can seem humdrum, that we’re surrounded at all times by modern-day lore and legend. History is happening right now. Life is a movie! So let’s do the time warp again, shall we? Here are the top five local news stories of 2024.
Restaurant Roulette
longest-running fancy restaurants—shut down its multi-course, Michelinstarred experience in the main barn, in favor of a new communal dining program in the cozy studio building next door. Barndiva also lost its star this year, which might have been sort of the point. We said goodbye to other businesses, too, like Summer’s Market on Powell Avenue and a few different tasting rooms and wineries that felt the squeeze of a general wine-industry downturn. But all the high-profile closings were, in the end, outnumbered by openings. New restaurants El Milagro, Pepper’s, Acorn Cafe, Tizsa Bistro and the Healdsburg Bubble Bar all debuted this year to lots of love from locals. Some new tasting rooms popped up as well. And beyond the food-and-wine scene, we saw Yoga on
Now that Healdsburg is one of the top global foodie destinations, the sound of a restaurant closing here can be heard ’round the world. A trio of our buzziest spots blinked out this year, all within a block of each other: Chalkboard, billionaire Bill Foley’s trendy hotel restaurant (which he quickly replaced with Arandas, an upscale Mexican-food joint that’s struggling to fill seats); Molti Amici, a casual Italian eatery that promised to revive the spirit of shuttered local favorite Campo Fina; and Second Story, the high-end vegan restaurant upstairs at Little Saint. The owners of Little Saint are now focusing on community events and their more casual downstairs cafe. A similar pivot took place in January a few blocks south, where Barndiva— o n e o f He a l d s b u r g ’s
FIRE SPARKS RENEWED CONCERN ABOUT ‘THE NARROWS’ COULD LIMITED FITCH MOUNTAIN ACCESS FAIL IN AN EMERGENCY? Image courtesy Hector Barragan
BLAZING TRUCK A fire exploded from a truck’s engine
compartment on Friday morning, Dec. 13. No one was hurt, but the blaze rekindled concern over the safety of Sunset Drive.
By Christian Kallen
A narrow stretch of Sunset Drive overlooking Villa Chanticleer, which has been called out by its residents as a potential hazardous location in an emergency, experienced a real-time test last Friday morning when a
Center move back to town; a dance studio open at Dragonfly Farm & Floral; a couple of hundred seniors move into the new Enso Village zen living facility at the north end of town; the Fitch Mountain dog park and trails reopen after a total makeover; the Solful weed dispensary set up shop in an old Victorian on Healdsburg Avenue; and an affordable YWCA child care option launch out of the Healdsburg Community Center. And the wheel keeps spinning … Read more: Meet the New Adel’s: Healdsburg Diner to Reopen Soon, May 29; Legal High Comes to Healdsburg, Oct. 16; Restaurant Dream Ends With Rude Awakening, Nov. 6
Protests in Healdsburg
The first big one, in spring, was an offshoot of the regional Gaza war protests.
contractor’s pickup truck suddenly caught fire, sending flames some over 20 feet into the canopy of the wooded neighborhood. While the fire department arrived on the scene relatively quickly, its efforts to extinguish the blaze led to controlled traffic on the road at intervals for up to an hour—raising pretraumatic stress among the neighbors. “The narrows were impassable for an hour!” texted Mima Petrick to her husband, at 9:13am Dec. 20. “Everyone agreed that now the fire department can say that this is unacceptable… Everybody on the other side of the narrows would not have been able to get out.” The term “the narrows” is a descriptive one the residents of Sunset Drive, Stewart Lane and Valley View Drive have come to apply to a quarter-mile stretch of the road that, lacking a sidewalk or curb,
Activists from the Sonoma County for Palestine group discovered that General Dynamics, a major U.S. weapons manufacturer behind some of the bombs that Israel is dropping on Gaza, has operated a large facility in Healdsburg for years— right next to the post office on Foss Creek Circle. In a protest at the building one April morning, they chanted: “General Dynamics, you can’t hide—stop arming genocide!” This impassioned demonstration in turn reinvigorated the weekly Thursday-night antiwar protests long staged at the bus stop on the western edge of the Healdsburg Plaza. Local farm and vineyard workers also took to the streets of Healdsburg en masse this year, to demand higher pay and better treatment—especially during natural disasters like fires and floods. First, as is now ➝ Another Wild Ride, 8
seems to be at risk of sliding downhill into Villa Chanticleer property—and perhaps taking a car with it. Or at the very least being too “narrow” for both first responder vehicles and evacuating residents during an actual emergency. Several times during the past two years, members of the neighborhood have used the public comment period of Healdsburg City Council meetings to call attention to the dangers inherent at this pinchpoint of the road, in case an evacuation is necessary due to earthquake or fire. When a contractor’s 2005 Ford F450 caught fire on Friday morning, exactly at the location of concern for many of the neighborhood residents, their worries flared up again. “There was smoke coming from under the hood, then a flash, and that was followed by the fire—my ➝ Fitch Mountain, 4