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Newsletter Vol. 1, Issue 1

Here And Now News Launches Free Publication As Downtown SLO Readies For Int’l Film Festival

Welcome to the very first edition of Here And Now News (HANN), an intimate coverage of the issues that concern Downtown San Luis Obispo and the people that live, eat and shop here.

In addition to current events, HANN will be coming up with all sorts of ways for you the readers to enter contests, win prizes and get your 15 minutes of fame. Keep an eye out for new improvements each and every week.

If you can’t get your hands on our print copy, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with our online version which you can find at hereandnownews.com/newsletter. There will be many new features and surprises on the web site, too, so make sure you bookmark it and check back often.

Each week in this space, we will take a closer look on a specific topic to help our readers understand what makes downtown tick now and what the future may look like for our favorite place in town to hang out (see poll below).

For our first issue, we thought we would take a look at one of the town’s biggest events, the annual International Film Festival. For this 14th installment, organizers have put together 11 different categories of film’s for your viewing pleasure, including the Central Coast Filmmakers Showcase.

The festival officially kicks off Friday, March 1 at the Margarita Ranch at 6:00 p.m. and will continue for 10 days across nine venues, including the Palm Theatre, the Fremont Theatre, Downtown Cinemas and the SLO Little Theatre in downtown San Luis Obispo.

As one of the most popular attractions in SLO County, seats are expected to go fast. In order to get guaranteed, priority seating for your favorite films, organizers suggest purchasing a Film Pass. See six movies of your choice for $45 or get access to all screenings for $150.

In addition to the collection of films brought together for this festival, there are also workshops and panels you can attend for $10.

For more information, call 546-FILM or visit slofilmfest.org.

Best Location In SLO; Majority Prefer Downtown, Cal Poly UU

It’s no secret that downtown is SLO’s hot spot, but what other places in town are residents most fond of?

It would appear the next most popular place in town is another co-ed hangout, Cal Poly’s University Union, the only other place in town you can catch a movie, order some great pizza, check out passerby’s with lust and longing and read as many books you don’t plan on purchasing as you like.

Rounding out the top 5 locales in SLO are BBQ & Brew on Los Osos Valley Road, Madonna Plaza on Madonna and the Z Club on Archer Street.

The only two other responses were the unknown locales “Your mom’s house” and “On my back”. Perhaps they’ll be more popular next year :)

Downtown Events This Week

March:
Saturday the 1st—
New Monsoon (8 p.m.—Downtown Brew

Sunday the 2nd—
Flow & Optimistic (7 p.m., Downtown Brew)

Monday the 3rd—
Skrambler (9 p.m., Frog & Peach)

Tuesday the 4th—
Pint Night (All Night Long, Frog & Peach)

Wednesday the 5th—
Fair To Midland (7:30 p.m.—Downtown Brew)

Thursday the 6th—
Library Book Sales (6-9:00 p.m., SLO Vet’s Hall—544-3033)
Farmer’s Market (6-9:00 p.m.)

Friday the 7th—
Library Book Sales (10 a.m.—5:00 p.m., SLO Vet’s Hall)
Devil Doll (7:30 p.m., Downtown Brew)

Openings

Open Jobs—
Uptown Jeans—Sales position; part-time; 595-3822
Crazy Jay’s—Sales position; part-time; 541-3145
Lucky Lulu’s—Sales position; part-time; 546-8696

Open Rentals—
626 Broad St.—2+ br/loft/2 ba; $2000; 543-7777
856 Morro St.—1br/1ba/2 car garage; $1375; 543-3841
Walk Downtown—3 br/3ba/fireplace/2 car garage; $2500; 550-5780

Open Leases—
1380 Broad St., #2—960 Sq. Ft.; $1440 + 40% of utilities; 543-9119
672 Higuera St.—$2.15 per Sq. Ft.; will conform space for needs; 215-5192
1065 Higuera St., #202—500 Sq. Ft.; $1000; 541-2888×3119

Lights, Camera, Caption!

Upload your pictures to the HANN Flickr account by registering at hereandnownews.com.

Leave a funny caption for your pic and encourage others to do the same and your photo might end up in this space along with the funniest caption added to the comments section for your picture that week. Uploaded pictures will also rotate randomly in the Flickr stream on the HANN site.
All readers are encouraged to submit their pictures. Our only request is that all submissions and captions respect the fact that we have readers of all ages. That means there’s a PG-13 max. Remember, the goal is to make us laugh!

Printed photos will be entered into a contest at the end of the year. Remember that black & white photos print best.

Small Business Advice

Hello, and welcome to Here And Now News, a new initiative launched through my small business marketing company, Prevail PR.

As a company dedicated to the art of marrying old and new marketing tenets and using them to help small business owners realize success, this publication seeks to be a live case study of some of the techniques we believe work best in today’s marketplace.

Our goal is to transform this little rag into a valuable downtown commodity, with virtually no budget whatsoever, and get our readers more involved in this beautiful community.

Through a mix of user generated content, reader participation, valuable targeted information, coupons, public access television, contests, local business promotion, charitable donations and daft marketing, we hope to show how creativity, not currency, is the path to success and hope local business owners keep a cynical eye on our progress.

Ultimately, Here And Now News was created to help strengthen our local business community and preserve what’s left of what SLOcals fondly remember as SLO Town.

Unfortunately, without the skills to effectively and efficiently market their products and services, many of our local small business owners are going to continue to feel the heat from the onslaught of big-box bullies.

Will Mom & Pop survive? I sure hope so, but it comes down to marketing in my opinion. For our part, we’ll be offering free advice right here every week and hopefully set an example of how to market a business in 2008.

SLOcal Soapbox

After taking a trip back home to Orange County a couple of weekends ago, I was reminded of the many reasons life is more enjoyable in San Luis Obispo, but there was one thing I noticed when I got back that unfortunately reminded me of the OC: more and more video cameras.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not completely comfortable being watched everywhere I go. Of course, we’ve all heard “If you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?”, but a better question would be “If you’ve done nothing wrong, why are you constantly presumed guilty?”.

I think the police here do a fine job, but with how little crime occurs, aren’t there enough of them to do their job without treating the rest of us like criminals ourselves?
Michelle S.—SLO

Got A Question? Ask HANN!

Dear HANN, I’m graduating soon and have a really tough decision to make. My heart tells me I should stay in SLO with my boyfriend, but my gut tells me I should take advantage of an offer I got out of state. What do you think? - JS, SLO

I think you already know the answer to that question. Though they say to follow your heart, it’s my experience that there is no going wrong with following your instincts.

Dear HANN, What are your three favorite things to do in San Luis Obispo?

1. Skip rocks in the creek with my kids, 2. Watch Blues games at Sinsheimer and 3. Go to Farmer’s Market.

Deal of the Week

A Grover Beach treasure has recently relocated to downtown San Luis Obispo, and they want to share their gifts with you.

Bambu Batu, the House of Bamboo, opened its doors at 1127 Broad St., Suite A in early November with a grand opening to show off their huge selection of Bamboo products ranging from textiles and kitchen ware to furniture and fencing.

“Bamboo, hemp, and organic cotton all offer excellent alternatives to the highly-toxic conventional textiles, and the future of sustainable agriculture depends not on a single panacea, but on a healthy diversity of alternatives,” said owner Fred Hornaday.

And he would know. After graduating from UCLA in 1995, Hornaday moved to San Luis Obispo soon after to engage in what he calls “socially conscious and environmentally sustainable business practices”.

You may know something about Hornaday’s first foray into leveraging sustainable resources into a viable retail business. He owned and ran the Hemp Shak (ironically located just a couple doors down from Bambu Batu’s new location downtown) for several years before selling to a new owner who has continued the store’s original success.
Originally opening in Grover Beach in 2006, Bambu Batu has brought similar success to Hornaday, but he felt the move to San Luis Obispo would allow his products to have an even bigger impact, citing the area’s ample foot traffic as the main reason for moving.

As an evangelist for sustainable living, Hornaday also mentions the off-road environment of Grover Beach. “As long as Oceano and Grover Beach condone and support this activity, which is detrimental both to the environment and to human life, the Grand Avenue corridor will never be anything but an extension of this off-road playground,” he said.

Grover Beach’s loss is now your gain. Stop by Bambu Batu through the end of the week for extreme savings on handbags, flutes, picture frames, jewelry and clothing. For more information, call 788-0806.

Contest Corner

C P I A N I A P R T T I O

Unscramble the word(s) above to find the answer to this week’s contest. Once you have unscrambled the letters correctly, find the answer to the trivia question below and submit your answers to contests[@]hereandnownews.com.

Winners will be selected at random from those who have both correct answers and will be notified of their prize via e-mail.

Trivia Question: Mission San Luis de Tolosa was founded in 1772 by Father Junipero Serra on the site of a Chumash village. What was the name of this village?

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