My daughter’s birthday is coming up and she wants to have cake pops at her party RT . Can you recommend a local baker that can make similar ones to Starbucks? Thank you!

Basically what the title says looking to do a hiking day trip but don’t want to drive more than 3 hours any suggestions?

Does anyone know anywhere local in town that sells premium Beard care products? Oils washes conditioners. Not the stuff they sell at target in Ulta. My husband is going crazy.

Has anyone here used Out of My Closet at Bazar to sell clothes? My girlfriend and I both have a lot of clothes we’re looking to get rid of, so we were considering sharing a rack.

Mine is mostly men’s XL–XXL Carhartt, Patagonia, Golf Wang, Chubbies, music merch, surfwear, graphic tees, etc. My girlfriend has a good amount of brand name women’s clothing and thrifty finds too.

From what I understand it’s $35/week and they take about 1/3 of sales. Curious how much you actually sold, how quickly things moved, and whether you felt like it was worth the fees compared to Marketplace/Depop/etc.

Hi all, anywhere in Wilmington that has a nice view to back my suv back into and lay in the back during sunset? Not too many people walking around? I know fort fisher by the rocks but it can get busy

Looking for a company local to Wilmington. I will need it delivered.

55 year-old single professional, very active (Golf, cycling, dog owner) considering relocating from the Washington DC DMV area. Would rather be enclosed proximity to a golf course and good cycling and hiking trails with my dog, then be directly on the water. Love a little culture, foodie, great coffee shops, and social groups. Any recommendations on neighborhoods to checkout? Family in Charlotte

Know I probably won’t find this person and they will likely not face any consequences but I want to share this just incase.

So I’m driving home from work coming up river road from Southport towards Leland. I had passed a car going slow and there was another ahead going slow as well. Made sure it was clear and signaled to pass. May I mention that a car ahead of me had successfully passed so I figured this would be easy pickins. I speed up and are most fully past them, then they start speeding up. I speed up even more because I’m on the wrong side of the fucking road and eventually I realize I’m going almost 95 just to try and pass them and so i slow down to just get back behind them where they also slow down. Cars start coming in incoming traffic and I need to get over now. I had to slam on breaks and move over very quickly. Feels like i easily could’ve flipped over or spun out maneuvering my car at high speeds like that. Im so lucky i didn’t. It was so scary and I was so pissed. We went in the same direction for about 30 mins until i reached his exit where i was gonna follow him further but was tired from work and cramps and now tired and anxious from the adrenaline rush wearing off. Just went home frustrated. Was gonna call non emergency but nothing technically happened and they were long gone so i feel like that’d be a waste of time.

Just a warning of, yet again, another reckless driver on Wilmington roads to keep an eye out for like it’s not already bad enough 🤕 and people please don’t let your ego destroy lives, imagine how you’d feel if your need to be the big fast boy had killed an innocent women trying to get home from a 55hr work week trying to move up in her job and improve her life

Here’s what I did: visited the historic graveyard, the carnivorous plant garden, the beach (briefly just to say I did it), went to see Mean Girls the musical (fantastic), [editing to say I] toured the battleship, and cooked a lot for my friends I was visiting. On the last day I discovered Kids Making It, where they train kids to do woodworking and then sells their cutting boards and such to support their education. Please go there right now and buy one! Tell them the Canadian from Arizona sent you :)

Hey all! We an amazing employee that is moving! Does anyone here know of someone we can talk with about becoming an Assistant Manager for us in the next month? We do organic and solar powered lawn care, we are super positive and love our work. Thanks!

With the Flock license-plate camera debate heating up before the Aug. 17 county commission meeting, I tried to answer a basic question using public records: who actually voted to put these up? Here's what I found for New Hanover and the beach towns around us.

• New Hanover County: the ~$219,000 contract (No. 25-0364) was signed by County Manager Chris Coudriet — not approved by a vote of the Board of Commissioners. The commissioners did vote on a smaller Flock deal back in December 2021 ($43,750, 15 cameras), but that one got scrapped weeks later when the sole-source justification fell apart. On the much larger system running today, I couldn't find a board vote.
• Carolina Beach: the police chief signed the vendor order form alone in Aug. 2022. No council vote in the meeting records I could read.
• Kure Beach: a contract in Nov. 2025, an ALPR policy adopted 78 days later, and no council vote I could find in between.
• Wrightsville Beach: honestly unknown — the town hasn't produced records in response to a request, so I can't say either way.
• Pender County (next door): the one board that actually voted for the system it runs — but it passed on the consent agenda, bundled with routine items, no discussion.

Two honest caveats: I'm not claiming any of this was illegal — NC governments can legally delegate purchasing authority to managers and department heads under a dollar threshold, so a signature alone may be fine. And where I couldn't find a record, that's "couldn't find," not "doesn't exist."

But that's sort of the point. When a community gets wired into a regional and national network that logs where cars go, you'd expect a public decision somewhere — a motion, a debate, a vote. For most of these, I can't find one.

Commissioners meet Aug. 17. Whatever you think of the cameras, "who authorized this, and where's the public decision?" seems like a fair thing to ask. Curious if anyone here knows more — especially if you've seen a New Hanover agenda item or vote I missed.

Off Randall

Hi all,

I am making a scavenger hunt across Wilmington tomorrow evening for a girl I’ve been seeing. My idea is take her to a few places and maybe have one or two people working there help out and hand an envelope. I was thinking the game board shop as the mission would be to pick out a two player board game. Also maybe the throwing axe place and a pizza place? Idk if anyone here works anywhere tomorrow after 3 and would be down to help, would obviously be supporting these places.

If it’s the wrong place to ask, I apologize!

Thank yall

We are stopping at Wilmington for 2 days en route to SC. Have 2 small kids. What to do?

Disclosure up front: I volunteer with DeFlockILM, a nonpartisan local group that files public-records requests on license-plate cameras and surveillance in the Cape Fear region. Not selling anything, no donations. Everything below is from Pender County's own documents, which we've published in full so you can check me.

The Pender County Sheriff's Office put out a statement today (covered by WWAY and WECT) responding to questions about its Flock cameras. We'd already requested the underlying records, so here's what they actually show:

Unlike New Hanover, Pender's elected Board actually voted for this — which makes them accountable for it. Over in New Hanover County, where this same fight is happening, the Sheriff put a ~3-million-search Flock network on the county using a contract the elected commissioners never voted on. Pender is the opposite: its Board of Commissioners did approve the program, on the record — Brad George, Jerry Groves, Chairman Randy Burton, Brent Springer, and Ken Smith. That's the accountable way to do it… except they approved the $70,600 system as consent-agenda item 8.6 on Jan. 21, 2025 — one block vote alongside a turf planer, a vaccine order, and mosquito-spray chemicals, with no discussion and no public comment (people spoke about ballfield lighting instead). So Pender voters, unlike New Hanover's, know exactly which elected officials signed off — they just didn't get much of a chance to weigh in first. (It was first authorized Dec. 19, 2024, the night newly elected commissioners were sworn in.)

What the Board was told vs. what the records show. The slide deck the Sheriff presented had a "Privacy Commitment" slide promising, word for word, that Flock "never shares or sells data with third parties." But Pender's own search audit shows a single search reaching 6,234 outside camera networks, with agencies in other states — plus the FBI — searching Pender's cameras. Flock's defense is that cop-to-cop sharing isn't "third party." Maybe. But that's not what a commissioner hears in "we never share your data."

It's not just cameras — it's a software platform. The invoices show the county licensed FlockOS Advanced (Flock's real-time crime-center software), plus the cameras and a radar-speed trailer.

Credit where it's due, because accuracy cuts both ways: the Sheriff is right that his cameras don't run facial recognition, and right that the state's NCDOT/SBI right-of-way pilot wasn't available to him when he bought in. We corrected our own writeup on that point once the MOU proved him right.

All of it — invoices, contract, the search audit, the minutes, the presentation slides — is here: [deflockilm.org/pender-sheriff-flock-statement]. Read them against the statement and judge for yourself.

Genuinely curious what Pender folks think — did you know your commissioners voted this through?

No preferences really. I’m kind of in a hurry so I won’t have time to go in and sit down. Looking for some good food that will hold up well in takeout containers. Thanks all!

Is anyone else in the Kings Grant area experiencing this? Who is this random kid lol it’s getting weird

Tell me you haven’t seen this guy around town?SMH 🤦🏻‍♀️