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On Aug. 1, as Gilroy residents gathered in the city’s downtown to honor those affected by July 28 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, Hollister citizens simultaneously held their own vigil at the 400 block of San Benito Street. The Hollister vigil was planned...

A split City Council rejected a proposed ordinance Aug. 5 that would have created stricter rules for tobacco retailers selling flavored products. A complete ban is being considered. Members of the ad hoc committee that had explored options for a tobacco ordinance were Councilmembers Honor...

Erik Martin, standing on his family’s 62-acre ranch on Ferguson Road, points west toward Gilroy city limits. “On that side of 101, it’s all City of Gilroy,” he says. “There’s sidewalks on every street, nothing that’s ag. You come on this side, all these fields...

The gunman in the mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival took his own life during a shootout with police, the Santa Clara County coroner revealed late Friday afternoon, Aug. 2. Dr. Michelle A. Jorden, responding to requests from the Gilroy Dispatch and other local...

Eric Cryar, Hugo Del Moral and Robert Basuino are the Gilroy police officers hailed as heroes for shooting and killing the gunman who murdered three people and injured more than a dozen others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival July 28. Police Chief Scot Smithee named...

Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee stopped by the Garlic Festival law enforcement tent at “Gate 3” on Miller Avenue on his way home with his family about 5:20pm July 28. He was on US 101 just south of Gilroy about 20 minutes later when...

As the 41st annual Garlic Festival was in full swing, Christopher Ranch’s executive vice president Ken Christopher told the Hollister Free Lance that this year could potentially change the festival forever. With bigger-name celebrities than ever before, Christopher’s most pressing concern on the festival’s second...

The 2018 Farm Bill made it legal to grow commercial hemp in the U.S. for the first time in half a century, but fewer than half of California’s counties allow the crop. San Benito is one of them. Growers are now storming San Benito and...

Nearly two months after the Hollister City Council voted June 3 to uphold a planning commission decision to approve key pieces of the 400 block project, Mayor Ignacio Velazquez told the Free Lance he is still considering challenging the vote. Velazquez had filed an initial...

After holding a pair of parent meetings regarding middle school cell phone use, Hollister School District leaders will introduce a new “Away for the Day” cell phone policy for the 2019-20 school year. HSD’s school board approved an updated Board Policy 5131 on July 23,...