Driver Equipped to Shed Light on Gray Legal Area

A court decision three years ago seemed to invalidate a state law outlawing tinted front-seat windows in all cars and trucks.

The appeals division of the San Bernardino Superior Court said the law failed to prove a connection between tinted windows and traffic accidents. The court noted that 33 states allow tinted windows without any increase in collisions.

But the decision was not appealed up the legal ladder, a step that could ensure that it would be applied uniformly throughout the state. The anti-tinting law, on the books since 1970, was thus plunged into limbo.

Some police agencies enforce it vigorously, others do not. Some judges uphold tickets based on it, others have been known to throw them out.

Now a Vista man, who drives a late-model Chevrolet with tinted windows, has come up with a practical method for living with uncertainty.

He carries a copy of the decision, People vs. Fink, in case he needs to engage in some roadside plea bargaining.

“It was getting to be quite a problem,” he said about being stopped a couple of times.

The results have been mixed--win some, lose some. To further bolster his case, he removed the ultra-dark tint in favor of a lighter one.

Among the agencies, by the way, that still enforce the tinting law is the California Highway Patrol.

The CHP is convinced that darkened windows impair a driver’s vision, particularly at night or in bad weather, said Jerry Bohrer, spokesman at the CHP’s Oceanside office. Bohrer’s daughter was among those ticketed.

“I keep telling her . . . but she wouldn’t listen,” he said.

Fringe Flap

After more than 18 months of wrangling, the case of the $555.90 misunderstanding in Fallbrook may finally be over.

For at least that long, officials of the Fallbrook elementary school district have said that former board member Paul Schaden owes the district $555.90 for seven months’ worth of fringe benefit payments he received but was not entitled to.

Two other former members paid up promptly, but Schaden, defeated for reelection in November, 1986, insisted the payment was a lump-sum stipend for 1986-87, not a monthly allotment.

The money, which was in addition to a monthly salary of $240, was meant to be used to purchase medical insurance or as a tax-sheltered annuity.

Schaden resisted efforts by the school board, the county counsel’s office and an Escondido collection agency to get the money back. A Municipal Court judge in Escondido finally ruled last Friday that Schaden must pay up.

The cost of retrieving the $555.90 may have long ago outstripped the amount involved. Among other things, the district hired an outside attorney.

“It’s been very time-consuming,” said David Gammie, director of business and classified personnel services for the district. “Over two years, we’ve probably accumulated 20 to 25 pages of paper work over this.”

Despite the court ruling, Schaden, a fire captain with the Department of Forestry in De Luz, is not finished with Fallbrook schools. He’s a candidate in this fall’s school board election, trying to reclaim his old spot.

If elected, he will find that things have changed:

The school board has dropped the fringe-benefit package.

For Better or Wurst?

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, absent from San Diego County lo these five years, is set to return Friday to a 7-Eleven store at College Boulevard and California 78 in Oceanside.

And not just the old Wienermobile you remember, either, but an all-new, $60,000, fiberglass, 23-foot-long, 8-foot-wide, 12-foot-high Wienermobile, designed by the same customizing firm that did the car for TV’s “Matt Houston.”

“This is a high-tech Wienermobile,” assured Michelle Vansteenbergen, North County sales consultant for Southland Corp., 7-Eleven’s corporate parent.

Since 1936, Oscar Mayer has used a motorized hot dog look-alike as a marketing tool. Once a hot item on local streets, the Wienermobile was pulled out of service for half a decade of research and development, aimed at creating a flashier, sleeker “motor-dog on wheels.”

After a day of helping to dispense free balloons and 25-cent hot dogs and soft drinks in Oceanside--as a fund-raiser for Oceanside’s Casa de Amparo home for abused children--it’s on to Las Vegas, Denver and Seattle for the ersatz frankfurter.

However, progress has its price.

The intervening five years have seen the retirement of the diminutive actor who, dressed as Oscar Mayer, would alight from the Wienermobile and be grilled by his fans. His like will not be seen again.

“He was such an institution that he just cannot be replaced,” Vansteenbergen said.