• The Malibu Beach Inn, located just down from the Malibu Pier, changed hands, and previous owner David Geffen — a man reportedly worth $6.9 billion — added to his stash. The 47-room hotel, which Geffen purchased a decade ago for $29 million and then put in another $10 million in upgrades, sold for a healthy $80 million, which is not a bad profit, even for a billionaire.
• Malibu resident Gabe Kapler began a new chapter in his life when he started the baseball season as the Los Angeles Dodgers new director of player development, whose job is to find diamonds in the rough, nurture them and grow them into big leaguers. Kapler spent 12 years in Major League Baseball as an outfielder. He was part of the Boston Red Sox team that won the 2004 World Series, and, after, he served as a baseball analyst for Fox Sports 1.
• Another fatality on PCH: a pre-dawn, hit-and-run accident left a 21-year-old woman dead on the highway near Ramirez Canyon Road. She had stepped out of her car on the narrow shoulder of the highway when she was struck by a driver who fled the scene, but was quickly apprehended in Agoura Hills after he tried to escape up Kanan Road.
• City Council put the brakes on the city’s code enforcement officers who wanted the council to pass an ordinance giving them power to have liens placed on properties if they were out of compliance with the Malibu Municipal Code. With a 5-0 vote, council decided this was a bit of an overreach and probably of dubious legality. “This is like using a nuclear weapon … ” Council Member Lou La Monte said, “ … to kill a squirrel,” Council Member Joan House finished.
• Rather than just talking about the dangers of drinking and driving, a team of students, parents, first responders and dozens of volunteers took part in the “Every 15 Minutes” program at Malibu High School, complete with two smashed cars and pretend injuries, blood and gore that visually brought home the reality of a drunk driving crash.
