Daily Business Report: June 10, 2026
Meet San Diego’s theater organ player, whose music creates a time machine to the 1920s
By Drew Sitton | Times of San Diego
There are old car people. There are aquarium people. And then there are theater organ people.
San Diego has its own.
“You either get it or you don’t,” said Russ Peck, who is known as the preeminent expert on theater organs from San Diego to Los Angeles. “It’s just what turns you on, and this thing… I just love these, I love playing on ‘em. Working on ‘em. It’s a way of life.”
In 1970, Peck heard his first pipe organ while at a music hall in Downey. The only song he had memorized on the piano was “Porky Pig at the Ice Show.” He played it over and over until he was forced to stop. Then, he spent years bugging his parents to get him an organ.
Morning Report: Arizona Eyes Tijuana’s Sewage
by Voice of San Diego
A state-backed Arizona finance authority is considering a plan to fund a wastewater-to-drinking water facility in the Tijuana River Valley.
The goal? Pipe the purified water back to Mexico, and in exchange, ask Mexico to hand over some of its Colorado River water. It is one of several ambitious concepts backed by a $1billion Arizona fund aimed at identifying new water resources for the drought-stricken state.
But navigating the legal and environmental nuances of cross-border sewage is messy. The reality is that it’s incredibly complex to try to treat another country’s runoff on U.S. soil, our MacKenzie Elmer writes.
San Diego’s forgotten beer giant: How Aztec Brewing helped shape a city
By Debbie L. Sklar | Times of San Diego
Founded in 1921 during Prohibition, Aztec Brewing Co. was created by American investors who established operations in Mexico in order to serve U.S. consumers who could no longer legally purchase alcohol at home.
Mexicali, just south of the border, became part of a wider regional network where travel, trade, and nightlife flowed between the two countries despite Prohibition restrictions.
When Prohibition ended in 1933, Aztec relocated its operations to San Diego, establishing a large-scale brewery at 2301 Main St. The site sat within the city’s industrial corridor near what is today Logan Heights and the Barrio Logan area, then primarily defined by manufacturing, rail activity, and warehousing rather than formal neighborhood boundaries.
