It looks like winter on June 4 near Sierra-at-Tahoe on Highway 50. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Driving by Sierra-at-Tahoe on Monday at dusk it looked like there was enough snow to ski on.

A bitter cold storm blew through Northern California and Northern Nevada on June 4, dumping measurable snow on Echo Summit, which at times necessitated Caltrans to post chain control requirements.

The commute Monday night over Spooner Summit into the Lake Tahoe Basin was windy, with snow at the crest.

Snow was also at lake level.

The National Weather Service in Reno is calling for a 20 percent chance of rain-snow on Tuesday in Tahoe. The overnight lows for Monday and Tuesday will be in the 20s.

Summer-like weather returns Thursday, as the temps will be close to 70 degrees.

— Kathryn Reed

By Susan Wood

In the second nightclub incident in a few weeks, South Lake Tahoe police were trying Monday to piece together reasons why a 48-year-old local man pulled a gun on another resident at Whiskey Dick’s Saloon in a sudden fight this weekend that resulted in his arrest on charges of attempted murder.

Scott Enerson, who was booked into the El Dorado County Jail with no bail, allegedly pulled the handgun from his waistband and placed it to the head of Harlee Suida-Tuttle early Sunday morning shortly before the bar was to close. But the gun did not discharge, according to police. In its malfunction, the shot was fired into the air and hit the ceiling of Lake Tahoe Boulevard bar.

Suida-Tuttle apparently restrained Enerson as city officers arrived with assistance from the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol. The call came in at 1:45am June 3.

No one was shot. The two men suffered from minor injuries.

It is unknown whether Enerson had a permit from the “uncommon” handgun, police Chief Brian Uhler told Lake Tahoe News Monday night. It’s also unclear what the relationship is between the alleged shooter and victim. Detectives are conducting an investigation.

Alcohol or drugs could be contributing factors.

“They’re in a bar, and it seems likely they’re drinking,” Uhler said.

The chief watched a surveillance video captured in the bar and surmised the action escalated to a level of intent that went way beyond mayhem. Charges rose to attempted murder because Uhler said police detectives were able to determine that Enerson may have tried to shoot the gun against the victim’s head and the gun malfunctioned.

“It actually happened quite quickly. The victim was lucky it didn’t discharge,” Uhler said.

No one from Whiskey Dick’s would talk to Lake Tahoe News on Monday night.

Uhler plans to meet with officers to discuss possibly beefing up weekend scheduling after a disproportionate number of serious calls at local bars have come in.

“This could be a case of lightning striking, but we want to enforce what’s going to be responsible bar activity with the seriousness of these incidents,” Uhler added.

Officer Aaron Crawford, who responded to the incident, said Enerson had to be placed in restraints and believes alcohol or drug use could be a factor if not both.

The case comes on the heels of a tragic beating at Mo’s Place just two weeks prior to this incident. The two bars are a few miles apart from the other.

“Obviously, this is alarming to us, but bars are always an issue in every city,” Crawford said. “It could be a sign of the times.”

As of Monday night, no arrests had been made in connection with the Mo’s Place beating.

“We will work with the DA’s Office on presenting evidence and they will assess to determine if there are to be any prosecutions. An arrest or arrests is a possibility, but it is not something I can publicly speculate about,” Uhler told Lake Tahoe News.

Derek “Zippy” Penaranda remains at Renown Medical Center in Reno.

The Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society invites the community to learn about Amateur Radio on Field Day 2012 at Sky Tavern on June 23 from 11am-6pm.

Meet and talk with Reno’s ham radio community, check out their radio equipment, and see what Amateur Radio is all about. A special “Get-On-The-Air” station will be set up so people can try ham radio — including kids.

Reno’s Amateur Radio operators, or “hams,” will join other hams across the country in setting-up radio stations in unusual locations, using only emergency power, and then try to make radio contact with as many of those other hams as they can.

The Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society will be operating from the parking lot at Sky Tavern, 21130 Mount Rose Highway, 10 miles up Highway 431 from Highway 395.

For more information, call Jim Deahl at (775) 741.6937, or email field-day@snars.org.

Tahoe Maritime Museum is celebrating the ’20s in Tahoe. On June 30, the Homewood museum becomes the Swinging Summer Night Dinner and Dance place.

Cost of the 5:30-8:30pm event is $65 per person. RSVP to katena@tahoemaritime.org or (530) 525.9253, ext. 103 by June 25.

The Rotary Club of Tahoe Douglas is looking for young professionals who want to travel to India during January and February 2013.

Each year Rotarians throughout the world sponsor Group Study Exchange Teams made up of four young professionals and an experienced Rotarian team leader who travel to another country to learn about the culture and the practice of their professions. This year, our team will be traveling to Andhra State in South Eastern India, home of the city of Hyderabad. While the exact travel dates have not been set, the team will leave in early to mid-January and return approximately four weeks later.

Team members must be: employed for at least two years in business or profession; be between 25 and 40 years old; work or live in Rotary District 5190 (which includes El Dorado and Douglas counties); and be able to travel, with their employer’s permission, for the entire four-week trip.

Team members are chosen by a competitive process that includes an application and interview.

Transportation, housing, and food are paid for by the Rotary Foundation and Rotarians.

Applications are due July 20.

For more information or an application, call Paula Peterson at (530) 307.0909 or email tahoepaula@sbcglobal.net. Applications are also available online.

The Truckee River Watershed Council’s Weed Warriors will be leading two weed walks and three weed pulls.

The walks are June 30 and Aug. 11, and the pulls are June 20, June 23 and July 14.

The Weed Warriors are hoping to bring awareness to the public about invasive weeds in the area and the proper ways to dispose of them.

Weed walks, led by Jeannette Halderman and volunteer weed warriors Annaliese Miller and Kathy Welch, will be in locations where infestations have been confirmed in order to learn about what plants are invasive to this area.

The weed pulls, led by Jeannette Halderman, program manager for the Truckee River Watershed Council and botanist Susan Urie of the U.S. Forest Service, at Boca Hill on June 20 and 23 and Stampede on July 14 will show how to properly remove weeds as well as help with the infestation at locations in the Tahoe National Forest.

Invasive weeds are aggressive plants that have been introduced into an area outside of their native range and are dangerous because they out-compete native and other desirable plants. As a result, they reduce land and recreational values, damage water quality, contribute to soil erosion, degrade plant and animal habitat and increase the risk of wildland fire.

For more information, call (530) 550.8760, ext.3.

The West Shore Cafe in Homewood is looking for mixologists.

Recipes for the new signature Moonlight Mojito cocktail recipe are being accepted online through June 5.

The top 10 cocktails will be voted on during a contest June 9, 2-5pm. Cost is $20.

For more info, call (530) 525.5200.

The draft Relocation Study pertaining to the loop road project will be available June 5.

People will have until 5pm July 6 to comment on the proposal.

The overall projects involved realigning the highway on the Nevada side from the intersection at Lake Parkway on the mountain side behind MontBleu and Harrah’s, then into California behind Heavenly Village, Village Center, and then creating a new alignment between Fern and Echo roads before rejoining Highway 50.

This would be four-lane highway.

The document being released Tuesday is supposed to outline how the affected properties – residential and commercial – would be moved elsewhere in South Lake Tahoe.

Copies of the relocation plan will be available at the TTD office, which is in the same building at the TRPA in Stateline – 128 Market St., Ste. 3F. Or call Alfred Knotts for a copy – (775) 589.5502.

Comments on the relocation plan may be submitted to aknotts@tahoetransportation.org or P.O. Box 499, Zephyr Cove, NV 89448.

Tahoe Transportation District is the lead agency of the entire project.

Placer County Supervisor Jim Holmes testified last week at a regulatory hearing before the California Board of Forestry in Redding.

The hearing was held to receive public comment on the implementation of a “fire fee” on structures located in State Responsibility Areas — areas where the state has firefighting responsibilities.

The annual fee would be up to $150 per structure for lands within the SRA and could affect about 800,000 property owners and 31 million acres throughout the state, including rural land in Placer and El Dorado counties. The fee originated in a state budget trailer bill for fiscal year 2011-12 and imposed the fee on all habitable structures within the SRA. The fee could raise as much as $85 million annually.

Holmes, representing the state’s rural counties as a representative of the Regional Council of Rural Counties (RCRC), spoke at the hearing.

“RCRC has numerous concerns with the law, as we have continuously stated throughout the legislative and regulatory process,” said Holmes. “We opposed SRA fees when first introduced several years ago on the grounds they were bad public policy, and they were repealed as a result of legal action. SRA fees remain a bad idea and we remain opposed.”

The fee has been controversial since it was first enacted and many of those opposed say the fees are unfair because residents pay local taxes for fire protection, on top of services provided by CalFire. Prior to the Redding hearing, the Forestry Board was in San Diego in June to receive comment on the fee. The board’s temporary implementation of the fee is set to expire in late July, and the board may start a new 45-day comment period on making the fee permanent. In addition, there is pending legislation in the Assembly that would repeal the fee entirely.

• Lake Tahoe Chocolate Shop now has a store inside MontBleu casino in Stateline.

• The conference sales staff of the North Lake Tahoe Convention & Visitors Bureau was recently honored with the 2012 Successful Meetings magazine’s Pinnacle Award.

• Pacific Union International, a luxury real estate brand in the Bay Area, has opened an office in Truckee.

• Unity at the Lake’s yard sale at 1195 Rufus Allen Blvd., South Lake Tahoe is June 30 from 9am-1pm. For more info, call (530) 544. 2266.

• Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences on the Sierra Nevada College campus in Incline Village is hosting Tahoe’s Avian Summer Visitors on June 14, 5:30pm. Cost is a $5.