Month: July 2026

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) – The outreach effort for Santa Barbara County’s Sidewalk Vending Ordinance has noted some improvements in the unincorporated areas of the north county.

Officials say that doesn’t mean they’ll be resting on their laurels, though.

Representatives of Environmental Health Services (EHS) remarked that compliance from sidewalk food vendors has increased in north county areas since the effort began in April, but that enforcement is still necessary especially in the south county.

In 2018 California law was changed, allowing sidewalk food vendors to sell to the public, if some rules were followed.

“The state law created a permit pathway and the methods and the requirements to do it correctly,” says Jason Johnston, Santa Barbara County’s Environmental Health Services director.

After that, Santa Barbara county inspectors saw a sharp increase in unpermitted and unsafe operations.

“They’re generally from out of the area,” says Johnston. “No food safety practices at all. Generally nothing is even on ice or any sort of refrigeration for the food being brought in from wherever they’re bringing it in from.”

Violations range from improper food storage and refrigeration, to a lack of hand-washing, cross-contamination, pest infestations, and illegal dumping of grease and waste.

In the past three years more than 200 notices have been issued to vendors without a permit.

That prompted the creation of an outreach team.  

And since April this year, violations are down a lot… just 14. 

With only 10 facilities shut down.

More than a thousand pounds of contaminated food has been thrown out.

“If it’s not enclosed, if it’s if it’s a pop up stand short of at a festival or some other outdoor activity, it’s not permitted,” says Johnston. “If it’s on the roadside, it’s not permitted.”

Additionally, pop-up operations along Highways 154 and 246 through the Santa Ynez Valley have been known to create traffic hazards.

“You have dust, you have vehicle traffic,” says Johnston. “People queuing right next to the roadside. You have traffic backing up. So that creates, you know, beyond the food safety side, the human safety vehicle traffic side.”

The outreach team continues to go around the county, making sure the vendors you see on the street have permits and are safe.

“And so that’s our goal is for these people to be permitted, compliant, producing safe food for their customers,” says Johnston. “You can not worry about being sick in a day or 2 or 3 days later.”

Officials say permitted stands are required to display their permits.

Residents can report unpermitted vendors to the county’s EHS offices.

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – The way electric vehicle owners are charging their cars is getting more convenient and packed with energy.

This month, 20 more stations came on line in Santa Barbara.  The Electrify America company opened a new large-format electric vehicle (EV) charging station at the corner of Carrillo St. and Chapala St. It expands access to fast, seamless and convenient EV charging in the city’s downtown core.

It is at the site of the former Greyhound Bus depot at 36 West Carrillo Street. The station offers 20 Hyper-Fast chargers. Each charger is capable of speeds up to 350 kilowatts (kW), which can add up to 20 miles of driving range per minute for EVs that accept high-power charging.

One driver from Los Angeles said his quick fill up was just what he needed.

Donald Dorson said, “just like 35 minutes and I’m at 85 percent so it’s twice what I need to get home now. For the most part I don’t like to take super long road trips so it’s not a huge deal and when I do it works great.”

For a driver from the San Fernando Valley, it is a site she will visit often on her three trips to Santa Barbara per week. Marlene McCoy said “once people find out about these chargers they fill up pretty  fast. It’s great they have 20 here so there is always something available. “

She is using the on line app and “it’s faster and because I am a member it is cheaper,  the pricing is very good for me since I am charging all the time.”

Emma Roldan and Thomas Urdinola were in a rental that needed a charge. The site was perfect for their coastal drive. “We are at like 60 percent already and we are going to grab lunch and then get back on the road,” she said.

Urdinola found the site with a phone search. “It’s funny, she used Apple maps and I used an alternative, Google maps and (we got) nearly the same results.”

Roldan said, “I use Apple maps  so i was just looking because it tells to the wattages and this one also had a lot available. The other ones there were only about two and that was it had 12 or 10 which was good.”

The company says, the new station also has a 1.9 megawatt (MW) battery energy storage system (BESS), which is Electrify America’s largest public BESS deployment to date. The BESS stores energy from the electrical grid during low usage periods and when abundant solar energy is available. It then discharges this energy during high demand periods.

Santa Barbara County also says it will be adding new charging stations with four on Santa Claus Lane and three at Rincon Park for a cost of $467,000.

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) — A sold-out presentation at the Lobero Theatre brought hundreds of people together to hear a conservation message centered on one of nature’s most misunderstood animals.

Award-winning filmmakers and Living with Wolves cofounders Jim and Jamie Dutcher shared lessons from the six years they spent living alongside a wild wolf pack in Idaho. Their experience inspired them to create the nonprofit organization, which focuses on wolf education, research and coexistence.

Despite decades of conservation work, Jim Dutcher said wolves continue to face significant challenges.

“After all this effort and money and success bringing wolves back, they’re still being hunted.”

Jamie Dutcher said living among wolves changed the couple’s perspective and inspired their lifelong mission.

“Wolves affected us so deeply and they were still so misunderstood that we felt… we had the opportunity to really give back to them.”

Today, Living with Wolves promotes non-lethal ranching methods, educational programs and public outreach to encourage coexistence between people and wolves.

“We promote coexistence, non-lethal ranching methods and we do a tremendous amount of educational outreach with school groups,” Jamie Dutcher said.

The conservation presentation came to Santa Barbara through a partnership with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Museum President and CEO Luke Swetland said the Dutchers’ work encourages people to rethink their relationship with wolves.

“What the Dutchers are doing is really an extraordinary exploration of humans’ relationship to wolves… and we’re proud to be part of that exploration because we all need to understand this relationship better.”

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, more than 6,000 gray wolves now live across the lower 48 states.

Jamie Dutcher said she hopes people leave with a greater appreciation for wolves and the role they play in nature.

“We just want people to better understand how incredibly social these animals are and how they’re a keystone species. They’re so important to a healthy ecosystem.”

The Dutchers hope a better understanding of wolves will inspire greater appreciation for the natural world and the important role wolves play in keeping ecosystems in balance.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – In a tragic turn of events, the Santa Barbara Zoo has bid farewell to its second red panda cub born just earlier this month.

On July 2nd, the Zoo welcomed twin cubs born to first time parents Ruby and Raj. It was a great accomplishment towards conservation efforts of the endangered species, and it was the first time red panda cubs has born at the Zoo since 1993.

The cubs were carefully monitored over the latest couple of weeks, but what started off as a happy milestone, has suddenly turned into tragic loss.

At just two-weeks-old, the Zoo lost one of the cubs on the morning of July 21st, and its sibling was quickly transported to receive specialized care in an incubator.

The Santa Barbara Zoo shared an unfortunate update on the second cub on social media Monday morning:

“It is with heavy hearts that we share the sad news that our second red panda cub, born to Ruby on July 2, passed away over the weekend despite receiving around-the-clock care from our veterinary and animal care teams.”

The zoo says it worked closely with fellow wildlife organizations to give the cub the best fighting chance of survival before it died over the weekend.

The cause of death for both cubs remains under investigation, but the Zoo says a necropsy showed significant fluid around the heart and some congestion of lungs.” Their mother Ruby has been doing well and has been reunited with her partner Raj. As red pandas breed seasonally, the Zoo says they do not expect another breeding opportunity until next year.

“We are deeply grateful for the compassion and support our Zoo community has shown during this difficult time. Red pandas remain endangered, with fewer than 10,000 estimated to remain in the wild, making every opportunity to contribute to the conservation of this remarkable species incredibly important.”

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