Harassment of Clinic Begins New Chapter

Pizza and pastry have been arriving at Womancare Clinic, the Hillcrest women’s health clinic long targeted by anti-abortion groups. Ads appeared in newspapers announcing that the clinic was offering free flu shots and selling a Lincoln Continental cheap.

It all came unsolicited. Womancare officials believe it is another chapter in a history of harassment. Deborah Fleming, executive director of the clinic, said: “It doesn’t close you down. It just interferes with your business.”

The campaign began when someone attempted to place a newspaper ad saying that the clinic was going out of business and was giving away blankets. Later, ads did appear in other papers saying the clinic was offering free Dobermans, free flu shots and had a Lincoln Continental for sale.

Efforts to trace the orders were unavailing, Fleming said. In one case, the culprit had billed the ad to a physician who performs abortions. Fleming has notified newspapers that ads naming the clinic or its officials must be verified.

But that hasn’t stopped the unsolicited pizzas and pastries from being delivered and billed to Womancare.

“This is without a doubt going beyond freedom of speech,” said Fleming, whose opponents’ picketing is protected by the First Amendment. “It’s interfering with our business and other people’s business.”

Gobble, Gambusia!

Is your stagnant swimming pool a breeding ground for mosquitoes? Are larvae hatching in your birdbath? With mosquito season nigh upon us, San Diego Vector Control has the answer: A Gambusia fish giveaway!

“They’re in the guppy family,” Jim Shoemake, county vector control supervisor, explained. “We put them in water sources, and they eat the larvae.”

Shoemake and his allies are offering fish free to anyone who shows up at the county’s Bureau of Vector Control with an appropriate container. The Gambusia fish hail from ponds in the wild; they are plucked into captivity by field technicians bearing nets.

“In some cases they go in swimming pools that people are no longer using, or ornamental ponds or any kind of water impoundment,” Shoemake said. “ . . . A pool would probably be adequately taken care of by a dozen fish. They do reproduce pretty quickly.”

4 Ways to Say No

Out on the tip of Point Loma, where the sea anemones, urchins, hermit crabs, mussels, octopus and abalone loll in the tide pools at low tide, the U.S. Park Service’s usual admonitory signs are posted in English, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Hmong.

Just a precaution, says Bob Randall, a Cabrillo National Monument ranger.

A few years ago, mussels and other creatures began disappearing from tide pools near San Francisco. Rangers traced the pilferage to newly immigrated Southeast Asians, Randall said, “because their culture was more of a fishing subsistence-type of life style.”

So the Cabrillo rangers have taken preventive measures, translating into Southeast Asian languages the signs that warn visitors against raiding the tide pools. There have been problems, Randall acknowledged, but not with Southeast Asians.

“The worst one was a fellow with 204 limpets,” said Randall, recalling an elderly Portuguese man preparing to cook “a sort of stew called sweetmeats. We threw all but six back, and kept those six for evidence in court.”

The man was convicted in federal court of “taking of wildlife”--a crime Randall said is punishable by a fine of up to $100 per creature. He said other land sharks have abetted the virtual disappearance of lobsters and abalone from the tide pools.

“It’s ‘the tragedy of the commons,’ and it happens all over,” he said philosophically. “Anything that’s a common thing, people will think, ‘Well, one little thing won’t hurt.’ ”

Sitting Pretty

These are grand times for the janitorial supply business, reports Greg Murray, purveyor of toilet tissues, plastic liners, de-greasers, light bulbs, extraction equipment and “decorative receptacles” to hotels, motels and other businesses in America’s Finest City.

Among the hottest-selling products are paper toilet-seat covers, said Murray, a vice president at Padre Janitorial Supplies in San Diego. Murray figures demand is up 50% over the past year, and he, among others, credits fear of AIDS.

“I’d say there’s been a significant trend,” Murray said. “ . . . I’ve been trying to adjust my stock levels.”

Murray’s wholesaler, Protecto Inc. of Walnut, Calif., manufacturer of toilet seat covers and government packaging materials, reports a similar increase in demand and attributes it “absolutely” to fear of AIDS.

“I attribute it to the fact that people are just very concerned about using public rest rooms,” said Gene Willoughby, Protecto president. “You and I know that there are no chemicals in this particular product to defeat AIDS or herpes, but it does act as a barrier--if nothing more, as a psychological barrier.”

Fact is, experts say no one gets AIDS from toilet seats.

“No way . . . you can’t get AIDS off a toilet seat,” said an epidemiologist at UC San Diego Medical Center. He pointed out that the AIDS virus is carried primarily through blood and appears to survive only momentarily outside the body.