The Odyssey Smoke Shop off East Vista Way ran afoul of its neighbors the very day it opened up for business. Erica Leary and John Byrom, two drug prevention specialists with the Vista Community Clinic, took the podium at the Aug. 26 City Council meeting to protest the new store.

Aug. 31 marked the 50th anniversary of the Vista Elks Lodge Family BBQ, the one time a year the Vista Elks open their doors to the public to raise funds for a host of philanthropic causes.

On Aug. 26, a San Diego Superior Court jury found that mold advocate Sharon Kramer defamed VeriTox scientist Dr. Bruce Kelman in a 2005 press release, but that VeriTox itself wasn’t wronged by her statement.

Vistans will fill two open City Council seats at the polls this November. The candidate pool includes two incumbents, Councilmen Frank Lopez and Steve Gronke, as well as two newcomers, Gene Ford and John Aguilera.

Jay and Cheryl Robinson, the new managers at the Vista Entertainment Center, are quite at home amid the sounds of crashing pins and rolling balls. Both of them were national class champion bowlers who made names for themselves in the 1970s and 1980s. Together, they won the AMF Grand Prix of Bowling in 1977.

In the midst of his trial, the head of a North County robbery ring pleaded guilty Aug. 19 to multiple robbery charges relating to a string of holdups last summer.

City Council declared in no uncertain terms at its meeting Aug. 12 that it rejected any state proposal to seize city funds to balance the state budget. While such proposals are only in the rumor phase, several legislators have floated plans that would use local transportation and redevelopment funds in an attempt to meet a $15 to $17 billion shortfall in Sacramento.

When Tom Piergrossi, the host of the popular landscaping show, “Down to Earth,” ended filming in December of last year, he thought it would be easy enough to sell his house and retire with his family to Hawaii. The Vista resident stopped his landscaping business, shut down his plant nursery and told all his friends he was moving

For the first time in 20 years of national and Broadway performances, the hit Broadway show “Les Misérables” is available for regional presentation, and Vista will get to host the very first performance in Southern California.

The trial for an Escondido man accused of robbing more than a dozen day laborers began Aug 13.

Three hundred Vista residents filled downtown Aug. 5 for a going away party. After a raucous celebration and awards ceremony, the residents marched down the Townsite streets side by side with local sheriff’s deputies and firemen in a display of community solidarity to say farewell to crime and drugs at the annual “Walk against Crime.”

Actor Ben Seton traveled halfway around the globe from his native Australia for the American debut of his one-man cautionary tale, “Cheap Thrills,” first performed for at-risk New Haven students at North Coast Church on Aug. 6.

The Optimist Club of Vista is one of just two in the nation with a clubhouse. The impressive Shadowridge facility was put to good use as the site of the annual Wine & Food Fest fundraiser July 26 raising money for both the Optimists and the Moonlight Cultural Foundation.

A 19-year-old man tried to kill another partygoer after the two men got into a fight over a broken aquarium, prosecutors said.

An 18-year-old Vista resident pleaded not guilty July 24 to charges relating to the assault of and theft of items from an acquaintance.