LA Times Crossword
June 25, 2020
Joe Deeney

The answers to clues 1-3 have something in common. The answers to clues 4-6 also have something in common, but not the same thing. The answer to clue 7 is the reveal for clues 1-3, and the answer to clue 8 is the reveal for clues 4-6. The two reveal answers work together to balance the puzzle in a very clever way.

1. Log flume, as at an amusement park
2. Password needed to connect to the Internet at a hotel.
3. Parking ticket securer on a car
4. Cut into, as in a surgical procedure
5. Start to turn mushy, as fruit
6. Where drug that is used to produce heroin was sold and smoked in the 19th century
7. With clue 8 and a hint to clues 1-3: Doctor or dentist's order
8. With clue7 and a hint to clues 4-6: Like a town lacking restrictions

HINT:
In clues 1-3 and 4-6, the property they have in common involves the beginng and ending letters of the answer words.

Answers:

1. Water ride
2. Wifi code
3. Wiper blade
4. Operated on
5. Over-ripen 
6. Opium den 
7. Open
8. Wide 

What the answers have in common: 

1. Water rIDE
2. WIfi coDE
3. WIper blaDE
4. OPEranted oN
5. Over-riPEN
6. OPium dEN
7. OPEN WIDE
8. WIDE OPEN

Clues 1-3 split WIDE open, and clues 4-6 split OPEN wide.