Good Times is distributed in Santa Cruz County, a coastal area that includes Capitola, Rio del Mar, Aptos and Watsonville.

[3] In 1988, Shore sold the paper to Independent Newspapers of New Zealand, part of Rupert Murdoch’s group of holdings, a year before much of downtown Santa Cruz was destroyed in the Loma Prieta earthquake.

[7] to Metro Newspapers, which owned the competing Santa Cruz Weekly, returning the publication to local ownership for the first time since the 1980s.

[11] On July 1, 2019, Good Times expanded its South County reach with the purchase of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Watsonville Register-Pajaronian, returning it to local control after 78 years of ownership by two multiple-state national media companies.

[16] In 2019 Good Times won the General Excellence First Place award, with judges praising the publication for its “excellent presentation, writing, story choices and quality of the photography” and noting, “The advertising was attractive and engaging.”[17] Good Times again received the state’s top award for weeklies in 2020.