Santa Monica police arrested at 33-year-old Marina del Rey man on Tuesday, Aug. 13 who had dinner at a local restaurant then refused to pay, telling a manger “I eat here free… you can come to my house and eat.”
At 9:34 pm officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the restaurant located in the 200 block of Broadway after receiving a report of someone attempting to defraud an innkeeper (as the charge is technically referred to).
When the officers arrived at the restaurant they spoke with the manager who told them the suspect had entered the restaurant and ordered dinner from the menu.
As the time approached for the restaurant to close for the night the server who had attended to this man apparently approached him and informed him that the kitchen was closing.
The suspect then allegedly informed the server that he did not intend on paying the bill for the meal.
The manager then told the officers that he himself approached the suspect and asked if he could “be of service?”
The suspect allegedly said to the manager, “I eat here free…you can come to my house and eat.”
After hearing this the officers then performed, at the behest of the manager, a private person’s arrest, and this resident of Marina del Rey was charged with defrauding an innkeeper, as well as providing false information to a police officers after it was discovered that the name that he had given the police was not his own name.
Bail was set at $5,000.
Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
