Now That’s News! (Right Next to Jetliner Parked on the Street)

Many Bay Area residents reacted with shock to the newspaper photos of the airliner that slid off the runway in Burbank and came to rest near a Chevron station.

Their shock was over the gasoline prices posted there.

“The horror!” wrote columnist Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Examiner.

“A buck seventy-nine for super premium! Twenty cents cheaper than Bay Area gas.”

Gee, what’s the pro football team up there called--the Forty-Whiners?

At least we finally know the real reason that ‘Friscans resent L.A.

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TALK ABOUT UNSCHEDULED ARRIVALS: By the way, James Maverick writes that the airliner mishap was not the most spectacular in the Burbank area. “A quick look at the Fry’s Superstore near the airport is proof,” he said (see photo).

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SERVE THE LORD--OR THE DEVIL’S BREW? Paramount’s newsletter reports that a woman called the city to request zoning information for a liquor store she wanted to open. After hearing all the requirements, she asked if she could open a church instead. The city had sent her information for each.

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WHY MOVIE TICKET PRICES ARE SO HIGH: On Monday near Fox Studios, Russell Clampitt of Long Beach saw a film crew using an elaborate sprinkler device pulled by a car to simulate rain dousing a couple of motorcycle cops. The crew had chosen a dry day. No doubt the thinking was that studio rain looks more realistic than Mother Nature’s.

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HEY, FACILITATOR, OVER HERE! Raymond O. Mills, the Reform Party candidate for the 70th Assembly District in Orange County, had one of the snappiest job titles on the ballot: personal transportation facilitator. (He’s a taxi driver.)

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.