It was a year with many changes for both Long Beach and the Long Beach Post. Our first year without its founder and publisher, Shaun Lumachi. Our first year with our new website. Our first year in reaching out and publicly recognizing individuals in our community who are helping alter it for the better. And certainly our first year in trying to engage our readers on a level that is deeper and more communicative.
Though we admittedly had faults—stories that somehow slipped past, successes we didn’t perhaps capitalize upon (we’ll get to those in another list next week)—we are happy to not only have a higher readership than ever, but to showcase what news stories you, dear readers, flocked to most heavily. For better or for worse, here are the Long Beach Post‘s top ten most-read news stories of 2012.
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10. Anti-Mexican Notes Left On Cars of Hispanics In Belmont Shore
In a saddening show of prejudice and ignorance, various notes were left on cars parked near the beach in Belmont Shore on Labor Day this year, stating how “Mexicans invaded this beach—how sad” and for Mexicans to “go back to Baja wetbacks” with a sad face. Though frightening to think that someone might have been staking out with a Sharpie and a legal pad waiting for beach-going Hispanics to leave their cars unattended, OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arrellano made us laugh when he commented in his story on the incident: “Silly racist–don’t you know most Mexis in the LBC are from Michoacán?”
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9. The Pros & Cons of Providing Undocumented Residents with Legal Licenses
Oh, that ever-incendiary term: undocumented resident. The subject alone is enough to rile up opinions, but paired with the possibility of providing such persons with legal rights, our readers unabashedly express their opinion—almost in a fashion which overshadows the piece itself. From an initial vitriolic comment from reader LBRider which read, “Get Out! I can paint my own fence and mow my own lawn. I don’t care how much money a state has lost, illegal is illegal. No amnesty! Take your American babies with you! Good by:)”, readers soon began a deep discussion of race, amnesty, immigration and how to deal with such a controversial subject.
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8. Local Dispensary Owner Arrested: LBPD, DEA Seize Cars, Guns, Cash
We knew this story was big as soon as we showed up at the press conference and saw multiple posters on easels with photos of seized cash, collector cars, watercrafts, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, residences and guns. And the man behind one of the Long Beach Police Department’s largest bust of the year was almost built for front-page news. Jon Storms lived in the same Los Altos neighborhood he grew up in, owned a line of tanning salons and (according to police) ran several dispensaries as for-profit enterprises. His illegal operations lost him everything after a crackdown on his sketchy business behavior. Now we just need Garage Theatre to do a reenactment. That would be epic because who doesn’t like an inverted, dramatic version of Cheech and Chong?
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7. Best of Long Beach Nominations: Food & Drink
2012 marked our inaugural Best Of campaign and the Gastronomic Gods certainly smiled upon us as Long Beachers came forward in droves to provide opinions on the best of this city’s sustenance and liquids. With thousands of nominations about everything from the best happy hour to the best bartender, YOUR vote was heard.
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6. Thomas Hand, 26, of Costa Mesa Killed in a Motorcycle Crash on 7th
Sometimes, the small stories with large consequences draws in readers—and in this case, the death of 26-year-old Thomas Hand after running a red light drew an unprecedented audience.
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5. Anonymous Warns Long Beach City Officials to Expect Us
Oh, Anonymous, the ever-sneaky group who seems to have their invisible hands into anything that might heighten anti-police-state, anti-capitalism, anti-censorship sentiments hit a nerve with Long Beach. It published the various addresses and phone numbers of everyone from Mayor Bob Foster to Councilmember Suja Lowenthal to various LBPD officers. In true Anonymous fashion, it was a more a show of their iconic Guy Fawkes masks’ smile than anything being ultimately revealed or subverted. Refresh button.
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4. Mayor Foster Releases Statement on Federal Building Shootout
Of course, it wasn’t necessarily Foster’s words that caught the attention of our readers. It was the fact that on February 16 of this past year, a situation at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officer here in Long Beach seemed set for disaster. An administrator, a very angry employee, talks of low job performance and a gun. Ezequiel Garcia, after a heated discussion with supervisor Kevin Kozac, shot Kozac six times. Kozac miraculously survived. A nearby agent, after hearing the shots, fatally shot Garcia.
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3. Space Shuttle Endeavor Flies Low Over Long Beach
Endeavor’s epic final flight captivated the entirety of Los Angeles and was cheered on as proof of our technological and space exploration prowess. And with the Queen Mary and the Aquarium of the Pacific on the list of landmarks the beast would be flying over on its last day ever off the ground, we knew we had to cover. The original story was updated with time changes several times throughout the day and became the go-to source for local Endeavor viewers. We also live-tweeted the LB flyover and filmed a Shoreline-shot video of this historic once-in-a-lifetime moment.
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2. Banks Not Angry at Gibson, But Should We Be?
It was, for some, like watching a star get shot down twice. Brian Banks, the famed Long Beach high school football star, was accused of rape in 2002 when he was just 17-years-old. Being put into a cell—along with his dreams and psyche, as Mr. Moore points out—for almost six years, it wasn’t until this year that his accuser admitted he did nothing. To the shock of many, Banks wanted no retaliation against Wanetta Gibson for lying, stunting his athletic career, and ultimately abusing an entire array of systems. Mr. Moore compellingly tells us that perhaps we should not follow his example.
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1.”No Survivors” In Crashed Plane; Banda Star Jenni Rivera Presumed Dead
Though the news of Jenni Rivera’s death is in some ways still fresh, it will definitely go down as the city’s biggest cultural loss of the year. Not only did the singer, TV star and entrepreneur (who died in a brutal plane crash after a concert in Monterrey) grow up on the mean streets of Long Beach, but her influence and importance as one of the first female narcocorrido artists stretched to millions of people on both sides of the U.S-Mexico border. Much like with the loss of Nate Dogg in 2011, Rivera’s death left a musical hole in Long Beach’s heart that no one else will be able to fill. Selena’s got nothing on her “ovarios de playa larga”–descanse en paz, Jenni!