Saturday Night Fish Fry

A Little While Ago

A truck driver for a South San Francisco fish company who skipped his regular delivery route and sold most of the fish for crack cocaine, avoided jail Thursday by agreeing to head to rehab, San Mateo County prosecutors said.
Byron Duane Bates, 43, of South San Francisco had earlier pleaded no contest to stealing Newport Fish Co.’s truck in October 2011. His three-year prison sentence was suspended on the condition he attend Delancey Street Foundation’s residential drug treatment program in San Francisco.
Bates was supposed to drive a $10,000 load of fish to Sacramento. He got as far as San Francisco and Oakland, where he sold most of the fish for just $400 worth of crack, said Steve Wagstaffe, district attorney for San Mateo County.
The company owner called police when calls started coming in from customers wondering where their fish was. The truck was found four days later in Oakland with 90 percent of the fish gone and the rest rotten, prosecutors said.

Bates, who was already on felony probation for burglary and narcotics possession, pleaded no contest to one count of felony vehicle theft.