Santa Barbara County

A bar-based sports bookmaking ring in Santa Barbara County that may have handled $200,000 a week in bets was broken up with the arrests of at least six people, authorities said Saturday. A team of state and local officers raided three bars and several other businesses and residences in Santa Barbara, Carpenteria and Santa Maria as well as Rocklin, near Sacramento. The raids concluded a six-week investigation led by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department.

A proposal to split Santa Barbara County will be put before voters after a petition drive got the issue on the ballot. The petition by Citizens for County Organization Inc. submitted 21,426 valid signatures -- 657 more than were needed to make the ballot, county elections division manager Bob Smith said Friday. After the county Board of Supervisors officially certifies the results at its Jan. 6 meeting, Gov.

From a small Los Olivos winery dedicated entirely to Rhone varietals comes this sterling handcrafted Syrah. A concentrated, lush wine the color of black cherry juice, it has an intense perfume of ripe red berries, vanilla and dried herbs. This is a Syrah meant for the table: to accompany grilled chops, wild birds and robust stews. Just the wine for the season.

County workers in Santa Barbara County stopped work at a county dump Saturday and announced plans for a general strike on Monday after a breakdown in negotiations with county officials over a new wage and health benefits contract. The strike will involve county workers in health services, parks, road maintenance and secretarial jobs, said Santa Barbara County Employees Assn. President Frank Allen. He said that 1,050 people out of the county's 3,300-member work force are union members.

Santa Barbara County supervisors on Thursday authorized their attorney to challenge the state Department of Health Service's plan to truck excavated waste from the McColl dump in Fullerton through their county, saying that additional environmental study is needed.

An aircraft will fly over Santa Barbara County's wine country this year, snapping photographs of sprawling oak woodlands in the picturesque countryside. County officials hope the aerial mapping will form a comprehensive database that will help strike a balance between environmentalists who want to save the oak trees and those who want them bulldozed to make way for new vineyards.

The Casitas Municipal Water District, which supplies about 50,000 residents of the Ojai Valley and part of Ventura, is considering loaning water to five Santa Barbara County agencies hit hard by the drought. But the district, in conjunction with the city of Ventura and the United Water Conservation District, still fears a long-term water shortage and continues to discuss plans for building a $120-million pipeline to hook into the state water system.

An oak tree preservation ordinance that was hailed in April as a breakthrough in relations between north Santa Barbara County ranchers and south county environmentalists is under attack as a potentially devastating blow to agriculture. Ranchers and developers filed a lawsuit asking the courts to order county officials to conduct a new environmental impact review. The critics had promised to challenge the law's legality the day it took effect, calling the initial impact study incomplete.

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on Monday ordered the Casmalia Resources hazardous waste landfill near Santa Maria to install additional ground water and air quality monitoring equipment by July 20 or face a county lawsuit aimed at closing the dump.

There was much heavy sighing and some collective head-scratching when the Bixby Ranch, a majestic coastal property belonging to the family that once owned all of what is now Long Beach and parts of Irvine and Palos Verdes, was sold in January for close to $140 million, a record for noncommercial real estate in California. The 25,000-acre Santa Barbara landholding had been slumbering for nearly a century as a respected cattle operation, a rustic getaway for the Bixby heirs and their friends, a surfing spot of mystical isolation, a site of concern to archeologists and environmentalists, and a muse for artists and other casual visitors.