Las Vegas Headliners Want to Make Orphan Tiger Cub a Star

Cats, lunches and tickets.

* Here kitty.

Siegfried & Roy, the Las Vegas headliners who use white tigers in their act, have offered to provide a home for the white tiger cub now at the San Diego Zoo after being seized at the border.

The decision is up to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Don’t look for it to happen.

Among other reasons: The feds are not anxious to tangle with animal-rights groups.

* Peach of an idea.

When Art Cavada, a hostage negotiator for the San Diego Police Department, was called recently to talk down a would-be jumper on an Interstate 5 overpass, he figured to use food as a lure.

So he commandeered a Caltrans employee’s Igloo cooler and lunch. And gave the would-be jumper a peach from the Igloo to gain his trust.

After four hours, Cavada and other cops were able to drag the despondent 41-year-old man to safety and whisk him to a mental hospital.

In the hubbub that followed, the Igloo owner was never located. Now he has been: Danny Garcia, a Caltrans maintenance supervisor.

In thanks for his peach, Cavada plans to spring Garcia to dinner at a Black Angus restaurant.

* U.S. Postmaster General Anthony Frank comes to San Diego on Tuesday to dedicate Rachel’s Night Center, a new shelter for homeless women in the old E Street Post Office.

* How tight is the job market?

In Escondido two police officer vacancies (starting pay: $26,004 a year) drew 626 applicants.

A water maintenance worker job ($20,508) brought 401 applicants, and a groundskeeper job ($20,820) 411.

Poor Cinderellas

The morning gloom. Or: How deep is my recession?

* Take out your hankies: even the wealthy are having tough times, sort of.

Business at the year-old One Nite Only in Hillcrest, which rents designer ball gowns, has never been better.

While there are other rental shops in San Diego, One Nite seems to have captured the high-tone crowd, with its gowns appearing at the Jewel Ball, the World’s Cup Ball and bashes from La Jolla to Paris.

Owner Pat Uri’s stock includes 600 gowns, renting from $25 to $125 a night: “We’re primarily a glitter company.”

Style is important. Discretion, too.

For the society matron who doesn’t want the world to know she’s been reduced to wearing a rented gown, One Nite provides after-hours fitting and home delivery.

* Low-ball real estate offers have become an art form.

Bill Opie, president of the San Diego Board of Realtors, reports the emergence of the “mimeograph offer.”

That’s where a sport-buyer faxes the identical offer to multiple sellers, hoping to catch a seller who is desperate for quick cash:

“I had 11 offers come in on the fax one day last week and every one of them was basically the same offer, but on different properties.”

Playing by the Rules

Your government in action (inaction?).

Remember in February when the parent-built batting cage/pitching machine at the baseball field at San Dieguito High School in Encinitas was shut down? For lack of the appropriate permits.

Other schools (no names, please) have built batting cages and pitching machines and no one was the wiser.

But San Dieguito decided to play by the rules and submit the project to the state architect and the California Coastal Commission.

For that, the cage and machine sat idle all season.

Two weeks ago, the state architect finally gave approval, and last week, the Coastal Commission.

“What should have taken two weeks took six months instead,” said baseball-parent Linda Hayes.

Too late for this year’s varsity Mustangs, who couldn’t hit a lick and ended up losing 17 of 22 games and finishing in seventh place.