A man linked to three separate robberies at stores in San Diego’s East County, including a case in which he wielded at hatchet and asked a victim: “Want to get hit with a hatchet?” pleaded not guilty in court on Friday.

Randall Lee, 22, of Lakeside, pleaded not guilty to three counts of robbery, one count of assault with a deadly weapon and a special allegation that he used a dangerous weapon in the robberies.

Lee is being held on $150k bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 7.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department (SDSO) said that the series of robberies began at around 12:40 p.m. on Feb. 28, when the suspect tried to steal a camera from a Best Buy store located at 8401 Fletcher Parkway.

When a security guard confronted the man about a camera that he was attempting to hide, the suspect pulled out a hatchet and asked the guard if he wanted to get hit with the weapon. Deputies said the suspect fled from the store in a brown, four-door Buick.

Less than two weeks later – on March 12 – the suspect struck again, this time twice in one day.

At 12:10 a.m., he stole several items from a Walmart store located at 13487 Camino Canada in unincorporated El Cajon, including two BB gun rifles. As he left the store, the suspect pulled out what was believed to be a CO2-style BB gun from his waistband.

Deputies said the man pointed the gun at a manager and asked him, “Do you want to do this the hard way or the easy way?"

The suspect walked toward the exit and fired the BB gun several times at the manager. He then fled the scene in an older model silver Buick.

At 11 p.m. that same day, the suspect entered a Walmart at 170 Town Center Parkway in Santee. As he tried to leave the store, an assistant manager confronted him.

Deputies said that’s when the suspect pulled a BB gun out of a backpack and fired multiple rounds at the assistant manager. The BBs missed the manager, but struck another employee in the shoulder. The employee was not hurt. The man fled the store in a car described by witnesses as a brown sedan.

In this most recent incident, investigators said the suspect left behind a wallet in a shopping cart. The wallet was stolen, and belonged to a victim of identity theft. Three credit cards belonging to the ID theft victim were later used at three businesses in San Diego, the SDSO said.

On Tuesday, the SDSO released surveillance photos in hopes that someone will recognize the man and help lead investigators to him.

Lee turned himself in Tuesday evening, SDSO said, in connection to the robberies. He was booked into San Diego Central Jail.

Hours after Republicans scrapped their bill to replace Obamacare just before it went up for a vote in the House of Representatives Friday, local congressmen and senators weighed in on why the bill failed to garner enough support.

Democratic Senator Kamila Harris gave a speech earlier this week in opposition to the bill.

In a statement Friday she said:

“This is a testament to the millions of Americans who stood up and spoke out to reject the idea that health care is a privilege and not a right. This sends a clear message to President Trump and Republicans. We will not cut the deficit by cutting care. We will not give tax breaks to insurers while giving higher medical bills to patients. We will not tell seniors, cancer patients, and women, ‘you’re on your own.’ Our constituents sent us to Washington to help improve the lives of all Americans, whether we’re Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. It’s time we do that.”

Congresswoman Karen Bass, a Democract representing LA, said in her statement that Democrats will keep standing up for people with pre-existing conditions and make sure that the marketplace provides coverage for those who need it. Her statement reads in part:

“Through the president’s proud negotiating tactics, the People’s House was left today to deliberate on a rushed bill that would have been more expensive than the president’s initial draft, yet still manage to abandon the same 24 million Americans by 2026. The pulling of this bill reflects the White House’s devastating inexperience and the inability of the Republican Party to effectively govern this body. I hope that the past weeks have sent the White House a strong message on behalf of the American people about their plans for the future of health care in our country.”

Democratic Rep. Susan Davis called the failure a “victory for the American people and our democracy,” in her statement. “It’s a testament to the power of the American people to have their voices heard on a bill that would have directly impacted their lives. I hope they will continue to weigh in and show this administration that its reckless policies will not pass muster with them. Clearly the American people didn't buy the Art of Repeal. The president just learned that health care's not just business - it's personal when people's lives are at stake.”

Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas called the failed bill “disastrous” and said it looks like it might be the beginning of the end of the Trump agenda.

“The Deal-Maker-in-Chief wasn’t able to deliver on one of his key promises,” Vargas said in the statement. “I’m glad they pulled the bill. Hopefully, this means that my Republican colleagues acknowledged how disastrous Trumpcare would be for millions of people across the country. It's time for us to come together to find bipartisan solutions and make improvements to our healthcare system that will lower costs and increase access to quality, equitable and affordable health care for all Americans."

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa said the millions of Americans who had their insurance plans cancelled and and suffered premium hikes under Obamacare are depending on lawmakers repealing and replacing the law.

“We must deliver relief from this law and return choice back to the people, however the [American Health Care Act] was an imperfect approach and I believe that we can do better,” he said in his statement. Issa said they will go back to the drawing board” to get it right for Americans worried about rising costs.

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Scripps Health President and CEO Chris Van Gorder also made a statement regarding the pulling of the bill. He said the political fight has created a lot of uncertainty in the health care industry, but said that maintaining the status quo isn’t a good option either. His statement reads in full:

“Now that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have pulled the new health care bill, the obvious question is what will happen next.

Clearly this is far from being over. The political battle waged over the last two months has created a great deal of uncertainty for everyone in the health care industry, including health care providers like Scripps Health.

At the same time, maintaining the status quo isn’t an attractive option. While extending insurance coverage to millions of more Americans under the Affordable Care Act has been a great accomplishment, we can all agree that the original legislation has some flaws that need to be addressed.

Perhaps this pause in the partisan firestorm in Washington offers the perfect opportunity to find consensus in this incredibly important debate.

I believe these priorities offer the keys to success: Making sure as many Americans as possible have insurance coverage; ensuring that coverage is affordable; and giving health care providers a seat at the table to hammer out the details since we are the ones who better understand the downstream impact of health reform legislation.

Just as Obamacare represented the will of the Democrats, Trumpcare or Ryancare represents the interests of the Republicans. Such partisan-based approaches will always be handicapped by the opposite party’s out-of-hand rejection.

Instead, we should all be joining forces to create AmericasCare – legislation based on compromise and flexibility.

Acting in a truly bipartisan effort will provide a foundation to sustain the provisions of a health care law for years to come and to fix the inevitable problems that will surface as we move from political legislation to real-world experience. And it will move us closer than ever to the goals we all share – insurance coverage for all Americans, better access to care and improved quality.”

Three different types of Vecaro brand self-balancing scooters have been recalled, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The recall impacts the Glide 65, Drift 8 and Trek 10 scooters after at least three reports of the hoverboards smoking. Hoverboards have one wheel at each end of a platform and are powered by lithium-ion battery packs.

The lithium-ion battery packs in the self-balancing scooters/hoverboards can overheat, posing a risk of smoking, catching fire and/or exploding.

No injuries or property damage have been reported.

The hoverboards come in black, white, red, blue, gold, silver, graffiti print and flame print.

The products were sold at The Audio Shop and Stereo Zone in California and online at VecaroLifeStyle.com from November 2015 through November 2016 for between $300 and $400.

If you have one of these self-balancing scooters, you should stop using them and contact Vecaro for a free repair or a credit toward another product.

If you’re thinking of buying a hoverboard, the safety commission says you need to look for a mark or label that reads "underwriters laboratories standard UL 2272." That's the highest safety standard.

And if you do have a hoverboard that hasn't been recalled, here are three things you can do as a precaution:

• Do not charge them overnight.
• Do not charge them unattended.
• Have working smoke alarms and a fire extinguisher nearby.

San Diego firefighters have knocked down the flames from a fire that started this morning and are now investigating the cause.

The call came in around 10:50 a.m. to the San Diego Fire Department (SDFD) about a fire that had erupted on 521 S 36th Street.

Thick, black smoke plumed over the two story home in Mountain View.

Once the smoke cleared, firefighters climbed the roof of the home working to extinguish the rest of the fire.

SDFD says that no one was seriously hurt, but a German Shepard did die in the fire.

The resident and owner of the German Shepard, Malachi Hightower, says he could not run back inside to save his dog.

According to Hightower up to seven people live in the home.

Hightower says that although his dog named Bentley didn’t survive the fire, he’s relieved to have made it out of the home.

“I’m just glad I woke up,” Hightower told NBC 7.

Another dog was given oxygen by SDFD and was later able to walk away with its owner.

Refresh for updates.

The victim who was shot and killed near Gompers Preparatory Academy in Chollas View on Friday has been identified, the San Diego Police Department confirmed.

The victim has been identified as Cherkeiray Devonte Jones, 23 years old, of San Diego.

Residents heard multiple gunshots just before 6 a.m. on 47th Street near Hilltop Drive.

SDPD Homicide Lt. Todd Griffin said the man's body was found on Gompers Prep school property. The victim was not an employee of the school, he added.

Officers initially told NBC 7 the victim was found by a school janitor. Griffin said a school employee made the discovery while raising the school's flag.

Gompers is a middle school within San Diego Unified School District located south of State Route 94 and east of Interstate 805.

School officials were on their way to the scene, police said. Students are on  break until April 4.

No other information was available.

Please refresh this page for updates on this breaking story. Details may change as more information becomes available.

A school in the San Diego Unified School District has notified parents that test results show some water on the campus has been found to have "higher than allowable levels of lead."

Emerson-Bandini Elementary School is located in Southcrest, northeast of the connector between Interstate 5 and State Route 15. 

Several samples of water from Emerson-Bandini tested positive for lead, according to results released Friday by district officials.

Three weeks ago, NBC 7 reported on concerns about a strange odor in the water at the school. At the time, district officials told us they were alerted to a possible odor in the water in February. As a result, the district sent samples out for analysis.

A district spokesperson said preliminary results indicated “some mitigation of the situation may be required.”

On Friday, Principal Heather Harris sent a letter to parents of students of the school and a charter, San Diego Cooperative 2, that operates on the school property.

In it, parents learned a therapy dog rejected water from a sink inside one of the charter school classrooms on January 26.

The teacher saw "a sheen on the water that was similar to a sheen that can be seen when oil is on the surface of water," Harris wrote.

The district sampled water from several sources on the campus and results showed "levels of a contaminant that exceeded the state's allowable threshold," Harris wrote.

According to Samer Naji, a Facilities Communication Liaison with the school district, the contaminant in question is vinyl chloride (C2H3Cl) which is "generally related to plastic products and their degradation over time."

Naji said sample results showed a range from not detected to 2.35 micrograms per liter. The maximum contaminant level is .5 micrograms per liter.

The district's water provider, the City of San Diego, found similar results through its own testing.

"The contamination appeared to be isolated to the portable classrooms that house the charter school on the campus," Harris wrote.

Harris said workers replaced flexible lines leading from the wall to the plumbing fixture. That, along with no longer drawing water supplied through PVC pipe, seemed to fix the issue, she said.

While the school was testing for the strange appearance of the water in the charter school classroom, it was decided to also test for lead in the water.

Recently, there has been a series of instances in which parents and educators are concerned about school drinking water.

First, there was the discovery of lead in the drinking water at a San Ysidro elementary school.

Then, Warner Springs schools confirmed they are dealing with arsenic in the water there.

Soon after, the La Mesa Spring Valley schools' superintendent said water at all of its school sites was being tested.

In December 2016, the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water required all community water providers test for lead in drinking water at K-12 schools.

SDUSD will begin testing all schools for lead as of April 4.

The work will begin in the southeast neighborhoods where some of the district's oldest schools are located.

The district will work its way north and west until they've completed the testing - which is estimated to happen around the end of the traditional school year in June.

Here is what parents can expect:

• Five schools will be tested each day
• Up to five samples will be taken at each campus.
• Drinking fountains, cafeterias and food preparation areas may be included.
• Testing will happen in the morning, before classes begin
• City of San Diego will analyze the water samples
• Results will be posted at this link.

The County Health and Human Services Agency has put together information regarding lead poisoning. You can find that here.

The man who shot and killed his parents in their Sunset Cliffs home over the Thanksgiving holiday two years ago has pleaded guilty to murder, prosecutors confirm.

Peter Haynes entered guilty pleas Friday to two counts of first-degree murder after shooting and killing his parents in their Point Loma home.

On Nov. 28, 2014, San Diego police officers found the front door ajar at the home of David and Lissa Haynes.

Inside, officers found Lissa face-down. She was shot in the chest but beyond help, they said.

David was on his back, with six gunshot wounds to the stomach and back.

He was clearly in pain but able to speak, Officer Bradford Green testified at a pretrial hearing.

"My son shot me... with a glock," David said, according to the officer's testimony. "He is schizophrenic."

The couple died shortly after at a nearby hospital. 

Haynes was found hours later walking near the crime scene with a semi-automatic handgun in his pocket.

He was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, with special circumstances that hint at premeditation. Prosecutors alleged Haynes had been lying in wait and that he committed burglary in the commission of the homicides.

Haynes received treatment at Patton State Hospital after his arrest. His defense attorney said he could not understand the charges against him and assist in his own defense.

His sister, Kimberly, told NBC 7 San Diego Haynes had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

A court ruled him mentally competent to stand trial.

After entering guilty pleas Friday to two counts of first-degree murder, Haynes faces 100 years to life in prison when he's sentenced June 9.

A driver of a Landrover lost control of his vehicle, went off the road and crashed into a Fedex truck on Interstate 5 at Main Street. The crash happened around 4:30 p.m. Friday.

The driver of the Landrover was rescued from the car and taken to the hospital.

Another Fedex truck took the deliveries from the first truck to deliver the rest of the packages.

The Main Street onramp to I-5 south was shut down for a while, but crews are clearing the lanes now.

It is unclear how severe the driver’s injuries are. There were no other reported injuries.

No other information was available.

Please refresh this page for updates on this breaking story. Details may change as more information becomes available.

OK Food Inc. is recalling about 933,272 pounds of breaded chicken products that may have been contaminated with metal and other materials, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

The problem was discovered when the Oklahoma-based company received five consumer complaints that stated metal objects were found in the "ready-to-eat" chicken, USDA said.

The ready-to-eat breaded chicken items were produced on various dates from Dec. 19, 2016 through March 7, 2017. A list of the products subject to recall can be found here.

The recalled products have the marking “P-7092” inside the USDA mark of inspection. The breaded chickens were shipped to retail locations and institutions nationwide.

After and internal investigation, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said the objects in all the complaints came from metal conveyor belting.

"There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products," the USDA said. "Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider."

Customers are being urged not to consume these products and should throw away or return them.

For more information about the recall, contact Abby Brown at (479) 312-2409. Media with questions about the recall can contact Jordan Johnson at (501) 944-7891.

San Diego ranked second just behind San Francisco as the most expensive place to buy a home in the United States.

The median home price in America's Finest City is a whopping $593,500, according to a study by mortgage research firm HSH.

Someone seeking to buy said median priced home must earn $113,530.43 per year, the study shows.

San Francisco, unsurprisingly, was the most expensive city to purchase a home, with a $835,000 media home price. Unexpectedly, however, San Francisco is not followed by New York City, yet another metropolis known for its astronomical home prices.

Another California city rounds out the top three unenviable positions in the HSH list: Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, the median home price is $503,400 and the salary needed to acquire a home is $98,315.22, according to HSH's findings.  

Separately, the national average median home price is $235,000 and people can go shopping with $51,962.53, the study indicates.

The Clinton Foundation is partnering with the San Diego Foundation and San Diego County’s Health and Human Services Agency to focus on children and families.

“Too often, children and families needlessly struggle because of gaps in the child health and welfare systems,” said Gillian Sealy, CEO of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative. “By addressing these gaps, we can help increase the number of children and families who are getting the help they need, and create pathways for them to succeed later in life. We are excited to work with The San Diego Foundation, the County of San Diego, and the broader community to build on their work to address this important issue.”

The partnership will build on the success of Live Well San Diego, a 2010 initiative that aims to improve the health, safety and wellbeing of San Diego residents through more efficiently delivering services to residents, providing public service information and good policy decisions.

“We are honored to engage in this partnership focused on improving the quality of life for San Diego children and their families,” shared Kathlyn Mead, CEO and President of The San Diego Foundation. “All of our regional communities deserve collaborative and effective systems that provide the best health and well-being outcomes for our children now and in the future.”

Under the multi-year partnership, local leaders and organizations will seek to help children and families that receive assistance from local agencies in San Diego County. The focus will include inequalities in child welfare and juvenile justice.

The partnership is forged the foundation’s Clinton Health Matters Initiative (CHMI), which tries to bring individuals, communities and organizations together to contribute to the health of others.

“Live Well San Diego is about cross-sector collaboration and building on the diverse perspectives from our communities to achieve a shared goal of a healthier, safer and more thriving region,” said Nick Macchione, Director of the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency. “We are excited about this new partnership that is aimed at strengthening families and addressing critical issues impacting our children today.”

San Diego is one of the top cities in America for residential solar power installations but for some reason, that number has stalled.

"This is the first year where we've seen an overall slowdown year over year," said Daniel Sullivan the President of Sullivan Solar Power.

Sullivan says over the second half of 2016 and into 2017 the adoption of renewable energy has slipped.  He says historically the solar industry has grown 30% to 40% year over year.  Why the change?

"One being is that the rules changed for those who went solar last year in June and so it made it slightly less attractive," said Sullivan.

Those changes include Net Metering 2.0, where new solar customers are unable to receive the same credit for excess electricty.  Sullivan also says potential solar customers are annoyed by agressive marketing.

"Companies going out in the neighborhoods knocking on their doors, calling them on the phone," said Sullivan, "for the average consumer it's overwealming, it's confusing."

So what will bring the industry back?  Benjamin Airth with the Center for Sustainable Energy says the addition of batteries or storage will make going solar more cost effective for some people.  The homeowner would be able to store excess electricty at their home rather than sent it back on grid to SDG&E.

"There's absolutely a need," said Airth but prices and incentives for the storage batteries will have to be attractive to potential solar customers.

"But there's still a lot of learning that needs to be done," said Airth.

Sullivan agrees, " The technology is proven, the questions was, is the cost going to justify the investment?"

The Oceanside Friends of the Arts nonprofit will focus on artist and audience collaboration at its next First Friday Art Walk in downtown Oceanside, according to a statement.

On April 7 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. attendees of the Art Walk can help create commemorative pieces for Oceanside in Artist Alley, Oceanside.

Over 300 artists attended the monthly events in 2016, but this year Oceanside Friends of the Arts wanted to try something more interactive and fun, according to Oceanside Friends of the Arts President Susan Brown.

“We really wanted to try something new and different this time to encourage our attendees to participate in the Art Walk and let them add their mark to the Oceanside art scene,” said Brown.

Every month will feature a different theme, and this month will be abstract art, said Brown.

The artists will pencil in a design on the canvas, and anyone can go up and add their touch to the work, even painting over what is already there. Art supplies will be provided.

“We’ve never had anything like this, where the public can be involved other than just looking at the artwork,” said Brown.

At the end of the event, artists will put the finishing touch and it will be photographed and made available for purchase as postcards or notecards with envelopes at fundraising events.

Each picture will have the designator with where, when and why the image was created.

The actual canvas will be auctioned off at a fundraiser, or used as a commemorative piece for a location in Oceanside, said Brown.

The Oceanside Friends of the Arts was created in 2016 to promote Oceanside and its surrounding communities as a popular art culture destination, and to demonstrate the importance of art, according to a statement.

All proceeds will go to supporting First Friday Art Walk and scholarships for high school graduates interested in furthering their art education, according to a statement from Oceanside Friends of the Arts.

The event is free and open to all ages.

The Hot Chocolate Run, coined as America’s Sweetest Race, will bring chocolate-y goodness and road closures to San Diego on March 26.

The Hot Chocolate race features a 15K and 5K run option, and is a chance for runners to enrich their training programs and to run for chocolate, according to the Hot Chocolate Run.

As thousands of runners fill the streets of San Diego, the following is a list of some of the street closures:

• K Street from 11th Avenue

• 14th Street from Imperial Avenue to K Street

• J Street from Park Boulevard to 14th Street

• 13th Street from K Street to Island Avenue

• Island Avenue to Broadway, 14th Street and 15th Street

• I-5 North Exit B Street/Pershing Drive

• C Street

• B Street

• Pershing Drive from 19th Street to Florida Drive

• Florida Drive from Pershing Street to Upas Street

• Upas Street to 26 th Street

• I-5 South Exit B Street/Pershing Drive

Both runs begin in Petco Park, with the 5K at 6:45 a.m., and the 15K at 7:40 a.m.

Residents are encouraged to get involved by cheering the racers along the course, according to the Hot Chocolate Run website.

For a full list of all the road closures and closure times, the Chocolate Run’s interactive Road Closure Map is available here.

Crews are battling a house fire in San Marcos, the San Marcos Fire Department confirmed.

Flames were coming out of the two-story home in the 500 block of Shadow Drive, and crews are still trying to put out the fire.

The call came in around 10:30 p.m. Friday night.

There are no reported injuries at this time.

No other information was available.

Please refresh this page for updates on this breaking story. Details may change as more information becomes available.

The chairman of the House intelligence committee has backed down from his assertion that Donald Trump and his aides were "monitored" by U.S. spies — a claim the Republicans have cited this week in emails to loyalists.

As NBC News reports, Rep. Devin Nunes told reporters Friday he can't be sure whether conversations among Trump or his aides were captured in the surveillance that has become a source of controversy since Nunes made it public in two news conferences this week.

A spokesman for Nunes, Jack Langer, asserted that the Congressman did not explicitly say Trump was spied on when he briefed reporters Wednesday that he was "very concerned," that "the intelligence community incidentally collected information about American citizens involved in the Trump transition."

The City of San Diego is testing new vehicle detection sensors on parking meters that gather data on spot occupancy.

Small, plastic encased cameras can be seen attached to parking meter poles in Hillcrest on Fourth Avenue between University Avenue and Robinson Avenue. The cameras could take the place of more traditionally parking validation methods, like tire chalking.

The sensors will be able to detect when a vehicle leaves a spot and recalibrate so that incoming cars don't occupy the spot for a time the person before them paid for. They will also discourage drivers from coming back and re-feeding the meter when the two-hour time allotment is up.

Katie Keach, the city's Communications Department Director, said that the sensors have been in place in Hillcrest for a couple of months.

Hillcrest resident Jacob Baez says the new technique isn't surprising, but thinks that the sensors will hassle residents and employees in the neighborhood more than it will visitor parking practices.

"It's kind of hard to say because a lot of the people that park here work here," Hillcrest resident Jacob Baez said. "That's what I've find out. They either work here or live here. The people that are coming by... they usually Uber or stay in an Airbnb or hotel, so I don't think they used the parking spots that much."

Keach says the sensors are temporary and are located on this particular block of Fourth Avenue only.

Democrats want to give President Donald Trump a transparency check in the form of a new bill with a mouthful of a name — and an acronym that takes an unsubtle dig at the president, NBC News reported. 

The "Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act" — or MAR-A-LAGO Act — would require the Trump administration to disclose the names of anyone who visits the White House or "any other location at which the President or the Vice President regularly conducts official business." 

The legislation, introduced in the House and Senate on Friday, calls for the creation of a publicly available database to be updated every 90 days.

Democrats said the move is necessary after visitor access records on the official White House website have not been updated since Trump took office, according to NBC News.

The San Diego Audubon Society (SDAS) hosted hundreds of San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) employees and their families in restoring the habitat for the California Least Terns in Mission Bay on Saturday morning.

According to SDAS, the California Least Tern is a shorebird that nests on beaches. They migrate with limited range from northern Baja California to as far as the San Francisco Bay.

The habitat restoration event is part of SDAS’ multi-year coastal dune restoration project, which is supported by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warn that if the terns’ nesting sites throughout California are not thoroughly protected, habitat loss and predators could cause the shorebirds' population to decline.

Every year, SDAS volunteers donate over 2,000 hours to remove invasive weeds and make these sites tern-ready before the birds arrive to breed in mid-April.

The Smart Growth and Land Use Committee met to discuss possible amendments to the Land Development Code and Local Coastal Program regarding short-term vacation rentals.

The meeting took place Friday morning at the Jacobs Neighborhood Innovation Center in San Diego.

It all stems from years of controversy on whether homes should be used as short-term vacation rentals, through hospitality businesses like Airbnb.

Last week San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliot said short-term rentals are not legal in single-family residential zones under the city’s current codes. This meeting was a chance for people to voice their opinions.

The meeting was divided into supporters of short term rentals, and supporters of stricter regulations.

“Everybody here is in favor of regulations, in favor of permits,” rental supporter Jeff Macgurn told NBC 7. “What we’re not in favor of is a wholesale ban on something that’s been a vibrant part of the San Diego economy.”

But residents like Jim Marshall say short-term rentals are bad news for local neighborhoods.

“They don’t have to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning to try and quiet the party next door then go to work the next morning at 7 o’clock,” said Marshall. “Their lifestyles aren’t adversely impacted by their businesses, which is renting out those homes.”

The discussion comes in light of a recent shooting from within a short-term rental in Crown Point.

An 18-year-old victim was shot twice during a party at a short-term rental on March 16. He is expected to recover.

Home owners in nearby residences told NBC 7 they had been having problems with their visiting neighbors for months.

One homeowner showed NBC 7 how two stray bullets hit cars in his driveway, while his children were just steps away inside their home.

Crown Point is one of the zones Elliot considers a single-family residential area.

"As we heard from the public at today’s hearing, San Diegans deserve short-term rental regulations that are clear, fair and reasonable,” said Airbnb Press Secretary Jasmine Mora in a statement. “The hearing was a productive discussion and a solid step toward rules that will preserve neighborhood quality while allowing folks to continue to make ends meet through using our platform to share their home.”

The Smart Growth and Land Use Committee issued recommendations after Friday's meeting, but nothing official was voted on.

The City Council will again look at the ins and outs of short term vacation rentals in the summer or fall.

For recommendations to move forward on this issue, there must be a unanimous city council vote.