Red Onion

The lights are already down--and the decibel level up--at the Woodland Hills Red Onion by the time Antoinette Flores and her two girlfriends arrive. It is early evening, and the three have come, as they often do, to dance, to meet people, and to party. "It's a place to come and mingle, to enjoy yourself," said Flores, 21, before slurping from a huge container filled with a potent cocktail called Sex on the Beach. "Everybody gets along here really good."

The drinks are cheap. The music is hot. The dance floor is packed. "Dollar Drink Night" and other promotions at the West Covina Red Onion draw hundreds of young adults from throughout the San Gabriel Valley--and beyond--eager to party. On a recent Wednesday, police say it also drew four short-tempered young men, who got into a parking lot argument. At the end, gunshots were fired and one man lay fatally wounded in the chest, another bleeding from a bullet in the stomach.

A city hearing officer has imposed a $60,000 fine and three-day shutdown on the Red Onion nightclub in Mission Beach, which had been cited by investigators for crowding and nudity. The officer rejected an original city-imposed sanction of a 60-day suspension of the club's cabaret permit as Draconian because it would cost the club $20,000 a day in lost business. Instead, officer William H.

Four women who were arrested in connection with a "scanty panty" contest at a Red Onion restaurant in Santa Ana have filed a lawsuit contending that the restaurant management misled them and knew that the event violated a city ordinance.

Saddled with six citations from the state alcohol regulating agency, the Red Onion restaurant and nightclub in San Diego is in danger of losing its liquor license just two years after it opened. In addition, a number of alleged business permit violations for patron fights, nude entertainment and dancing on the club's bar have jeopardized the Red Onion's license to operate a nightclub. An administrative court hearing on the city of San Diego's case against the establishment was held in June.

A Japanese-American woman said Thursday that she was shocked by an incident in June at the Huntington Beach Red Onion, where she and two female friends allegedly were verbally and physically assaulted by a group of white women in the bar and told to speak English. The woman, who asked not to be named, said she suffered a split lip after a group of five or six white women pushed, kicked and hit her and the other two women.

In the movie "When Harry Met Sally," Sally tells Harry in a restaurant that any woman can fake an org-- well, you know what I mean. More to the point, she tells Harry, he's probably had partners who had faked org-- while with him. Harry (played by Billy Crystal) scoffs at that, citing his bedroom prowess and saying he'd be able to tell if someone were faking.

Salads have long been the mainstay of light, summer meals. But now sandwiches are starting to nudge salads aside. There are a lot of reasons for our renewed interest in sandwiches. We are now nutritionally savvy enough to know that bread is indeed the staff of life. Some of us are such bread fans, in fact, that the filling has become secondary to the quality of the bread that holds it. And a sandwich makes a much more satisfying meal than a salad--even when the latter is accompanied by bread.