Smell

June Casagrande At times, it's so noxious, you can light it with a match. For half a century, a stench has plagued this otherwise pleasant little village. The intersection of Washington Street and Bay Avenue has reeked off and on for at least 50 years with what Public Works Director Steve Badum calls a "sulfur smell." City officials aren't sure where or what, exactly, the smell is coming from. But they're confident it's the result of some kind of organic matter rotting underground.

Does yours smell? Mine doesn't. But Gus Doppes' does. Really bad. His car, that is. Newport Beach resident Gus Doppes isn't just anyone when it comes to how things smell, and his car isn't just any car. Doppes is, or was, the proud owner of a new Bentley Arnage, which puts out about 400 horsepower and put Gus out about $215,000, both of which are a lot. Two hundred fifteen thousand dollars is twice as much as my car costs. OK, it's twice as much as twice as much as my car costs.

The following is an open letter to Costa Mesa resident Don Knipp in response to his letter printed in the Community Forum ("More debate on Heights annexation," Nov. 30): Is the "snob-appeal smell" really that bad? Living in Newport Beach I occasionally smell something that I have always assumed was hydrogen sulfide, but now I guess it is really "snob appeal smell." We Newport Beach residents pay good money to enjoy that smell. Being that this smell is a gas coming from the ground and that it is lighter than air you are absolutely correct in your assumption that a "Berlin-type wall" would not keep the smell from wafting your direction when the weather is right.

-- Andrew Glazer COSTA MESA -- Niketown in Triangle Square reopened Wednesday morning after a sewer leak forced it to close for two days. Tom Estes, general manager of the Newport Boulevard shopping center, said plumbers found a crack in the mall's clay sewer pipe under 19th Street. He said plumbers believe sewer water leaked from the crack through Niketown's basement walls. The plumbers will continue using cameras to search for additional cracks, Estes said.

Every garden needs at least one citrus tree. It doesn't need to be big to deliver the sweet smell of spring, and it doesn't need to have a premier location for you to provide a constant supply of fruit. Your citrus can be a dwarf tree planted in a decorative pot or a sour orange hedge to screen a fence. You can make a conventional choice, such as a navel orange, or a decorative selection, such as a variegated lemon. Citrus trees and shrubs can be as large as a standard tree or as small as a miniature dwarf variety.

A putrid scent greets the nose in Newport Beach. The likely suspect? Dead algae.NEWPORT BEACH -- Something smells funny around the Back Bay. Perhaps funny is not the best way to describe the unfortunate odor. It hangs around the stretch of Jamboree Road that passes the bay south of the Corona del Mar (73) Freeway. Around there, the air greets the nostrils with a putrid scent someone might expect to find around a storm drain or a stagnant pond. In short, it stinks. The unpleasant aroma can even be detected around the luxurious automobiles at Fletcher Jones Motorcars, leasing manager Kirk Dawson said.

-- Story by Deepa Bharath, photo by Steve McCrank HE IS Pumping "dirty water on one end and clean water on the other" WORKING WITH HIS HANDS Kevin Curnutt, 31, samples, tests and treats ground water. A senior field technician at Geomatrix, a Costa Mesa-based company, his work takes him to a variety of locations, from a nearby freeway to the Chino prison. A former mechanic with the Marine Corps, Curnutt was introduced to ground-water treatment by a friend nine years ago. He underwent a 40-hour hazardous waste training program to further qualify himself for the job. "I was always interested in mechanical stuff," he said.

Jim Brancucci is manager of the Newport Dunes Waterfront and Resort Christmas tree lot, which is being run in-house for the first time this year. In past years, the resort has rented some of their land out for other sellers but Brancucci said in this economy, the resort is finding new ways to generate revenue. He sat down with the Daily Pilot Thursday to talk business, Christmas and everything between. Below are excerpts from the conversation: How many trees do you think you’ll sell this year?

Some locations have lasting power. For example, there are three locations in Balboa that have had the same kind of businesses -- although under different ownership -- for more than 60 years. I am speaking of the corner of Main and Bay streets, which has housed a bakery for more than 60 years, and the two corners of Main and Balboa Boulevard that have been the site of a drugstore and a restaurant for the same period of time. First the bakery. When I was a youngster during the early 1920s, Mr. and Mrs. Reber operated a bakery in the Knight building at the corner of Main and Bay. It was so nice to walk past just to savor the wonderful smell of the place.

Some locations have lasting power. For example, there are three locations in Balboa that have had the same kind of businesses -- although under different ownership -- for more than 60 years. I am speaking of the corner of Main and Bay streets, which has housed a bakery for more than 60 years, and the two corners of Main and Balboa Boulevard that have been the site of a drugstore and a restaurant for the same period of time. First the bakery. When I was a youngster during the early 1920s, Mr. and Mrs. Reber operated a bakery in the Knight building at the corner of Main and Bay. It was so nice to walk past just to savor the wonderful smell of the place.

NEWPORT BEACH - The consensus among customers Friday afternoon was unanimous: The goods at Lush in Fashion Island look and smell tasty enough to eat. "That's the problem - I don't know if I should use it or eat it," said Corona del Mar resident April McBride, who was going over a display of brightly colored assorted "bath bombs" with a friend at the recently opened store. A similarly minded 16-year-old Nicole Maynard of Tustin was eyeing a chocolate-mint "cupcake" face mask packed full of the sweet stuff.

PASADENA — A legion of students from across California decorated floats that appeared in Saturday's Tournament of Roses Parade. These included about a dozen students from Orange Coast College and three students from Estancia High School in Costa Mesa. They were among an estimated 300 students from Orange County who boarded charter buses bound for Pasadena early Wednesday morning, when rain returned to the Southland. The local students made the trek north to help the Kiwanis International service club decorate its Rose Parade float and other floats.

Thursday’s low-key police raid on a Costa Mesa marijuana dispensary operating illegally is a sign of things to come, Police Chief Chris Shawkey said Friday. Police served a search warrant on West Coast Wellness, a medical marijuana dispensary at 1260 Logan Ave. Four people were arrested on marijuana-related charges, officials said in a news release. “This should be a message to them that our intent is to take whatever appropriate action we can to close them down,” Shawkey said.

Jim Brancucci is manager of the Newport Dunes Waterfront and Resort Christmas tree lot, which is being run in-house for the first time this year. In past years, the resort has rented some of their land out for other sellers but Brancucci said in this economy, the resort is finding new ways to generate revenue. He sat down with the Daily Pilot Thursday to talk business, Christmas and everything between. Below are excerpts from the conversation: How many trees do you think you’ll sell this year?

Children were encouraged Friday morning to cover themselves in frosting, rummage through piles of candy and investigate the inner recesses of Christmas trees. “You just can’t tell a blind kid not to touch,” said Blind Children’s Learning Center Special Events Coordinator Sharon Mitchael. “That’s their eyes.” The children from the North Tustin center’s preschool come each year to the Newport Dunes resort for a sensory-friendly holiday experience.

Dr. Wendy Norman’s clothes still smelled of Africa on Thursday, even though she had been back in the U.S. for 24 hours. She was reluctant to wash away the scents of the village, because the memories they held were precious. “I wanted to retain the smell of the dirt and the village,” she said. “They were such a huge reminder.” Just a few days earlier, Norman had been tending to ailing patients in Zimbabwe with an Orange County-based humanitarian group called the Ndebele Art Project.

Apparently, if he’s not busy constructing homes, he’s busy saving them. In what could have been a greater loss than it was, Newport Beach concrete construction worker John Balch helped suppress a kitchen fire with only a garden hose in a Corona del Mar home Wednesday afternoon until firefighters arrived minutes later. To say he was proud of his quick thinking, or excited to battle flames for even a moment, would be an understatement. “I got in the door, leaned down.

Diesels are loud, smoky and they stink. Right? Wrong. Mercedes-Benz might have the answer to getting the average car buyer thinking much differently about the smog-inducing, black-smoke-puffing diesel era of the 1970s. It might even hold the key to a diesel revolution in North America. OK, maybe evolution. Bluetec, as Mercedes calls its new range of engines, is not your father’s diesel. In a very short time, the technology will find its way into more than just Mercedes vehicles.

Big holiday weekend. Not Presidents Day — the Chinese New Year, which starts today. Are you excited? So am I. By the way, this is the year 4705 on the Chinese calendar, so it's later than you think. Since no one cares that much about Presidents Day — except for the three-day weekend for which we are deeply grateful; George, Abe, you're the best, seriously — I thought I'd check out the Chinese New Year, which I've never really understood, other than reading about the Year of the Rabbit or the Year of the Dragon on a placemat now and then.

On Sunday, Peter Buffa wrote about the troubles of a friend who bought a brand new Bentley, only to discover that it had a bad smell. The story was about his attempts to get a smell-free car. There were no doubt some readers who felt no sympathy whatsoever for the guy, who paid $215,000 for the privilege of driving around in a car that, according to his claim, probably smelled worse than a 5-year-old Yugo. In this case, I felt bad for the Bentley guy because I am familiar with his story.