Party Now, Ask Later

PARTY NOW, ASK LATER… Squid oozes onto the underground scene every so often to catch a show, although in Squid’s world, there is only water, so the underground means blending in among the fishy denizens of coral reefs.

Monterey County’s underground scene isn’t quite as rebellious. The most “underground” Squid could find was at Hacienda in Carmel Valley, where line dancing was taking place allegedly without approval from the County of Monterey. Gasp!

As it turns out, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Posse grounds in Salinas is the place to be for some off-the-books entertainment. Since the 1990s, the property has hosted at least six concerts a year, drawing roughly 2,000 people each – all without a permit, in violation of its agreement with the County and apparently without the government’s knowledge.

The Sheriff’s Posse at last went to the county asking for permission to host eight concerts a year. The County Planning Commission was scheduled to consider it on June 10, but the discussion got pushed to Aug. 12 because everybody involved with the posse was either on vacation or had other commitments and couldn’t attend the meeting, attorney Anthony Lombardo told the commission.

Perhaps the Sheriff’s Posse isn’t aware that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, so the saying goes. Squid is curious to see whether that truism applies when the ask comes three decades late.

FIGHT BACK… In Squid’s aquatic lair, there is a lot of fighting – the shape-shifting cuttlefish spray ink at each other while duking it out for a mate, sea otters are infamously aggressive toward their mates – but still, Squid is constantly surprised by how much humans seem to love terrestrial fighting. That includes President Donald Trump, who chose to celebrate his 80th birthday with a gigantic cage-fighting show at the White House. Nothing says happy birthday like brutality. Seeming not to see the irony, the president was also hashing out still-shaky peace plans to bring an end to the war of aggression that he started in Iran.

Closer to home, Squid was thinking about how the City of Monterey might be able to dig itself out of its structural budget deficit after voters ix-nayed a sales tax increase on June 2 (see story, p. 10). Sell tickets to a U.F.C. fight on the Colton Hall lawn? It could work in a town where people seem to like fighting – tourists vs. locals, NIMBYs vs. YIMBYs, heck, Montereyans vs. Pagrovians – but it might not really work out as a money-maker. The cost of the White House fight was $60 million, according to news reports, and Trump planned to pay the fighters in cryptocurrency that he himself had issued (is that even legal?).

What if Monterey skips the spectacle of a fight and just issues crypto to itself – problem solved.