BIG STAKES: State authorities insist that electronic...
BIG STAKES: State authorities insist that electronic slot machines are illegal in California, even on Native American reservations. But that hasn’t stopped thousands of them from popping up across the state (A1). . . . One attempt to halt the spread of the one-armed bandits took place in Ventura County in March. Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin G. DeNoce helped the LAPD obtain a search warrant for slot machine manufacturers in Moorpark and Chatsworth. Said DeNoce: “We seized thousands of pages of business documents and computer boards and shut down their business.”
CITY SLICKERS: It’s fascinating how cities promote themselves to attract tourists. Take Oxnard’s slick brochure. . . . It has a photo of a not-too-tanned couple lolling on rafts in a sparkling pool. It has a picture of another white couple on the beach, and yet another white couple reclined on the deck of a yacht. . . . The all-white modeling crew didn’t sit well with the Latino chamber and NAACP. After all, two-thirds of the city’s residents are Latinos, black or Asian (B1). The city has agreed to use different pictures.
DESIGNING MEN: Auto makers have finally figured out who sets the trends in the world of the automobile. . . . They’re sending Charles Ellwood and other car designers here to glean what they can from Southern California’s car culture. (Valley Business, Page 10). Ellwood’s in the driver’s seat at Volkswagen’s design studio in Simi Valley. Volvo’s got a design center in Camarillo and General Motors has one in Newbury Park.
NO RAMBO: Larry Chambers vividly remembers slipping into Viet Cong territory in 1968. “We didn’t look like Rambo,” said Chambers, who was with an Army Long Range Reconnaissance patrol. Nor did they act like him. Donning green tiger-striped fatigues, the stealthy patrol would infiltrate for five days in silence. The mission: Sneak a peak and get out alive. “I was scared out of my wits,” said Chambers, a free-lance writer in Ojai. Tonight at 7 at Barnes & Noble in Ventura, he talks about those days and signs copies of his book “Recondo.”
