COTTAGE INDUSTRIES, as envisioned, could bring a bunch of new, contemporary small businesses to the downtown/civic center area of Garden Grove.

Barack Obama was still president. The Rams had just moved back to Los Angeles and were playing before big crowds at the ancient Coliseum. No one had heard of COVID and TikTok referred to the sound that an analog wall clock makes.

It was in 2016 that Shaheen Sadeghi founded Cottage Industries LLC, intended to be a revolutionary reuse of a clutch of classic California-style homes between 9th Street and Civic Center Avenue.

Together with another innovative project – SteelCraft – it was going to revitalize Garden Grove’s small but full-of-potential downtown/civic center area.

The plan was to take those houses – some of them about a century old now – and convert them into cool little wine bars, microbreweries, art studios and even a boutique motel.

As you doubtless know, none of that happened, or at least not yet. But hope hasn’t died. Quite apart from the coronavirus pandemic – although that probably didn’t help – the big holdup was the big breakup between Shaheen and wife Linda. She filed for divorce in February 2018 and the subsequent battle over the division of assets – we are told, “reliably” – has been a big part of the long silence over the much ballyhooed project.

According to our sources, the Cottage Industries are now in the portfolio of Linda and she is planning to restart the enterprise.

“There will be good news soon,” we are told. We await developments.

Doggone brave police wooficers

A lot of respect is due to policemen and women who risk their lives enforcing the law. But let’s give due credit (and perhaps a belly rub) to their four-legged furry counterparts.

PAKO and lunch (WPD photo).

In Westminster and Garden Grove, K-9s did their part to –here comes the cliché – “take a bite out of crime.”

Pako, a police dog with the WPD, was involved Tuesday night with arresting a robbery suspect refusing to come out of a residential garage on the east side of town.  Two hours of negotiations and other efforts came to naught, so Westminster human cops sent in Pako to “apprehend the suspect.”

According to reports, the suspect was at taken into custody, treated at an area hospital and then booked into Orange County Jail. Pako was treated to some In-N -Out burgers.

KODY AND VADER (GGPD photo).

Garden Grove police deployed Kody and Vader in separate forays against bad guys. On Monday, Kody helped make the arrest of a man who had broken in the main post office on Stanford Avenue and was using a prybar to open private mailboxes to take the mail.

On Tuesday, Vader assisted in bringing in a suspect who had broken into the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses on Paloma Avenue.

Who’s a good dog? They all are.

“Usually Reliable Sources” appears every other week, alternating with Jim Tortolano’s “Retorts” column.