Everybody’s business

Cash and carry
If your landlord is forcing you to pay your rent or security deposit in cash, he or she is probably breaking the law.

This week Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 115, carried by Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch. The new law allows tenants to pay their rent via money order or cashier’s check, even if the landlord is demanding cash.

The only exception (and I hope this isn’t the case with you) is if you’ve bounced a check to your landlord within the past three months.

Legislators reached a compromise on the bill after the Realtors and Apartment Association lobbied against it.

The issue came up after problems in the Los Angeles rental market, including unscrupulous property managers pocketing cash or setting renters up for eviction by claiming they never paid.

Local Assemblymembers Rick Keene, R-Chico, and Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, voted against the bill, as did Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, in the Senate.

At the Hubbs
I want to give a mention to an anniversary, that of Hubbs Stationery, at 956 Mangrove, whose owners described it thus in the title of their clever press release: “50 years of retail bliss.”

While Hubbs has been around for 50 years, eight of those have been in Chico, starting a few years after Dan and Marietta Dressler bought the business from their parents, Robert and Frances Hubbs, and added a Chico store to the original Hemet location.

“Our son came up here to go to Chico State, and we just fell in love with it,” said Marietta Dressler.

Dressler said the business has managed to change with the times, in recent years adding an Internet presence. When she was 6 years old, Dressler was in charge of putting together “scratch pads and rubberbanding them and pricing them.” At 8, she taught herself to use the cash register; in the in 1960s she was one of the first women to run an office supply store.

The tradition continues with the Dresslers’ daughter and her husband, Stacy and Charles Campbell, who do the purchasing and managing for the store.

Love triumphs over war
The following report is by CN&R intern Nargis Nooristani, who at press time was still trying to snag an interview with the happy couple. We wish them the best.

Fourth of July this year will mean a lot more than the celebration of a day of freedom to a couple who will also be celebrating their wedding day.

Noelle Nottingham and Brian Turk met and fell in love while stationed in Germany in June 2001. Nottingham’s parents, Buddy and Gail, live in Chico.

After 9/11 the two were stationed in different areas in Iraq and went without seeing each other and having minimal contact for six months. When they headed home for the holidays, Brian asked Noelle to be his bride before the scenic mountains of Arizona.

The Discovery Channel will be filming the July 4 wedding set in Chico at the Nottingham home in California Park.

After that, the couple is going on a honeymoon courtesy of two hotels that are offering the stays in exchange for a mention at the end of the program.

The footage will air as part of a show called Love in War.