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In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the week:
When Caleb Pedersen told his colleagues he was going to miss work on Wednesday, they wanted to know why, and he was a little embarrassed to tell them the truth.
He did, though, and his co-workers laughed.
Pedersen, 28, missed work at his investment firm because he was camping out in the parking lot of Vancouver’s first Chick-fil-A, which opens 6 a.m. Thursday. He wasn’t the only one.
When Chick-fil-A opens a new restaurant, it awards free meals for a year to the first 100 people in line who live in nearby ZIP codes. The promotion turned the parking lot at the restaurant, 16400 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd., into the city’s hottest campground for one night.
Read more about Chick-fil-A’s opening.
Those craving a sit-down barbecue joint in downtown Vancouver: Your wish has been granted.
Longtime restaurant workers — and former roommates at Washington State University in Pullman — Erick Gill and Bryan Rodgers are teaming up to open their first restaurant serving central Texas barbecue with a Northwest spin.
The restaurant and bar called The Smokin’ Oak will fill the vacant space at 501 Columbia St.
Learn more about the new restaurant.
Prosecutors statewide are scratching their heads after the Washington Court of Appeals overturned a local criminal case, muddying the waters for what type of police misconduct can be brought up during a defendant’s trial.
The court found last week that the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in 2009 did not provide evidence the defense could have used to potentially discredit a testifying police officer — known in the courts as a Brady violation.
Lester Juan Griffin Jr. was convicted of first-degree burglary and first-degree assault in connection with a 2008 shooting in Vancouver’s Kevanna Park neighborhood. He is currently serving a nearly 24-year prison sentence.
Learn more about the Brady violation.
Clark County’s housing market reached an entirely new level last month when the median sale price passed $300,000.
The Market Action Report released Thursday by RMLS, a real estate listing service, said August’s median sale price for a single-family home was $307,000.
That figure has never been that high — at least going back as far as 2000, RMLS data show. It’s a 5.4 percent increase from July and a 15 percent year-over-year increase. Over the last several months, however, prices have climbed toward $300,000. Since April, the median sale price has been at least $290,000.
Read more about the housing market.
Hog lines — boats anchored in the outgoing current with anglers fishing wobblers behind heavy weights just off the bottom to catch fall chinook — are everywhere in the lower Columbia River in September.
Then the ebbing tide slows, and stops. The wobblers no longer wobble, so sportsmen pick up their anchors and call it a day.
Bad move, says guide Bob Kratzer of Forks, Wash., who moves to the lower Columbia River to fish during the fall salmon run.
“When the tide slows and stops, you don’t have to leave,’’ Kratzer told a seminar in August at Fishermen’s Marine and Outdoor in Portland. “Everybody wants to leave. They all go away.’’
Learn more about trolling.
Swedish clothing retailer H&M opened Thursday at Vancouver Mall.
By 10 a.m., about 50 people had lined up in front of the store, said Chris Yates, marketing director for the mall. The first 100 people in line before the doors opened at noon got vouchers worth between $10 and $300 to be spent on opening day.
Kali Kavan of Portland was one of those people and had $200 to spend. Despite a full shopping bag, she said she was having a difficult time finding $200 worth of clothing to take home. Kavan, a former H&M employee, got to the store around 8 a.m., making her one of the first people in line.
Read more about H&M.
