SQUID FRY 01.08.15 - Like a Chimney

LIKE A CHIMNEY… Every year come January, Squid goes into a funk. The days are still short, holiday celebrations have passed and Santa has returned to the North Pole.

Or has he? Squid’s always wondered if Santa takes the rest of the winter off, whiling the days away on a Tahitian beach, sipping daiquiris and loading up on sunshine.

But Squid never considered Santa might be chillaxing locally - until this week.

A man who claims to be Santa Claus (and who is legally known as Randy Lange) lifted Squid’s spirits Jan. 5 with the kindest kind of holiday cheer. Lange walked into Seaside’s Buffalo Wild Wings (in Santa’s street clothes, judging by the mug shot) with a duffel bag and backpack filled with five football-sized bags of pot, and had a few beers at the bar. Then, Stony Santa began wrapping the weed in napkins and handing it out to customers and staff alike. Presumably because he could not find a stocking, Lange also stuffed a hearty supply of buds into the bar’s tip jar.

Not surprisingly, police showed up and arrested Lange, bringing an end to this year’s most random act of kindness. Despite Lange’s obvious poor judgment, Squid’s still not ready to write off the possibility he could be the real deal. It would certainly explain how Santa eats all those cookies.

LAW AND DISORDER… Squid sometimes lurks in the second-story window at The Press Club, tweeting a quick pic of customers to see if they notice when it pops up on the mounted flatscreen. Squid does it because Squid’s a punk. And because Squid likes sticking Squid’s beak in other people’s business.

Administrative Law Judge Seaneen Wilson apparently does, too. In her proposed decision approving California American Water’s settlement with Monterey County Water Resources Agency, Wilson had no say in a separate lawsuit: Marina Coast Water District’s attempt to recoup the $17 million it sunk in the failed regional desal project from Cal Am and the county. That didn’t stop her from taking Marina Coast to task over it.

Marina Coast had opposed the Cal Am/county settlement, but as Wilson notes, its contradictory legal logic also supported it. “All of MCWD’s arguments against the settlement would go away if it was paid enough money,” she writes in her Jan. 6 proposed decision.

Wilson’s theory: Marina Coast attorneys know it won’t help their own lawsuit if Cal Am and the county work out their differences. “It seems likely that MCWD prefers to have Cal Am and the county/MCWRA fighting with each other as well as MCWD, rather than having them team up on MCWD,” she writes.

It’s basically a Twitter pic of Marina Coast lawyers with their pants down. Squid just might have to retweet it.