Rebecca Warren and the Sacramento Taiko Dan drummers open the 80th annual Japanese Food & Cultural Bazaar at the Buddhist Church of Sacramento on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026.
JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS
jvillegas@sacbee.com
From an 80-year-old cultural festival to a mystery tree poisoner at Lake Tahoe, this week brought a mix of tradition, transformation and troubling headlines across the region. Here’s a roundup of Sacramento-area stories you might have missed this week:
Construction is finally underway on the former Coca-Cola bottling plant on Stockton Boulevard, which will be converted into a 146-room Marriott Element hotel by early 2028, nearly a decade after Leeland Properties acquired the site. The 1936 bottling plant sat vacant for years after shuttering in 2013.An unknown person has been poisoning mature pine trees at Burnt Cedar Beach in Incline Village since 2022, with 16 more trees targeted this July and August — a case some suspect involves a wealthy resident trying to improve their view of Lake Tahoe.
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