Getting Clean Just Might Clean Out Your Wallet

At last, the remote-control bathtub.

Standards of Excellence, a newly opened San Diego wholesaler of upscale bathroom fixtures, is selling a computer-equipped bathtub with phone, stereo, Jacuzzi and security system (to see who’s knocking on the door). The time and temperature of your bath can be pre-programmed or dialed in from your desk or car phone.

The fully loaded model goes for around $27,000. So far, sales have been modest (two).

Just the Facts, Please

The campaign between San Diego Councilwoman Gloria McColl and challenger John Hartley promises to be a street fight. But the opening shot concerned street walking.

In a bus tour of Mid-City, Hartley told reporters that prostitution along El Cajon Boulevard is getting worse.

The San Diego Union carried Hartley’s comment in a story Friday morning, coupled with a police spokesman saying that, yes, the sex-for-sale business has resisted eradication.

By noon, the Police Department had taken the unusual step of issuing a written statement contradicting its spokesman and supporting McColl’s contention that things are getting better.

In the statement, Police Chief Bob Burgreen praised the mayor and City Council for “helping us rid the El Cajon Boulevard area of this problem.”

Deputy Chief Ken Fortier said the statement was prompted simply by a desire to set the record straight and not by any pressure from McColl, the chairwoman of a council committee overseeing the Police Department.

“We’re not involved in politics,” Fortier said.

Cardiff Falls Off Map

Chicago, 2. San Diego County, 0.

First, Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko slams San Diego because sushi (“the preferred snack of the yuppiest of the yuppies”) will be sold at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. And now Chicago-based Rand McNally & Co. has dropped Cardiff-by-the-Sea from the 1989 version of its Road Atlas.

Letters have already been exchanged with various Rand McNally officials, and more are planned from restaurateurs, schoolchildren, business people and residents, all vexed that Cardiff should lose its identity because it is part of Encinitas.

“We’ve only begun to fight this thing,” said Cardiff activist Irene Kratzer. “Cardiff is a beautiful, romantic name. People move here because of the name.”

This is not Kratzer’s first skirmish to let Cardiff be Cardiff. She convinced Caltrans to restore the Cardiff freeway signs, and she’s vigilant about making sure the Cardiff post office remains.

Particularly galling is that the Road Atlas continues to show La Jolla. Conroy Erickson, spokesman for the map maker, said that big cities like San Diego often have separate designations for major neighborhoods, but it is not considered a wise use of space to do the same for small cities.

Erickson said it is common for communities to petition passionately for inclusion in the atlas. Last year, he noted, 52 cities were added.

And two hamlets in Iowa considering consolidation were notified that only the official name of the new city would appear. As a result, Melcher-Dallas was born.

Even if Rand McNally refuses to budge, Cardiff-by-the-Sea continues to appear in the National Geographic Atlas of the World, although it’s hard to fit the hardback tome in the glove compartment.

Floating ‘Red October’

Hollywood producer Mace Neufeld is enjoying great support from the Navy in the making of “The Hunt for Red October,” including assistance at several military locations in San Diego.

The Navy is so high on “Red October” that it overlooked its displeasure at Neufeld’s last production, “No Way Out,” about a conniving and murderous secretary of defense and a Soviet spy who penetrates the Pentagon by posing as a navy officer.