A 70-year-old homeless man was arrested on Saturday, Jan. 25 after assaulting an IHOP employee and urinating on one of the restaurant’s table booths.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the IHOP at 1920 Santa Monica Boulevard after they had received a report of an assault.
Upon arrival at the restaurant the officers interviewed the victim, an employee at the restaurant.
The victim told the officers that a man had entered the restaurant at about 7:40 pm that evening and that after about one hour at the restaurant the man had fallen asleep in the booth that he had occupied.
The victim told the officers that he had woken the man up and informed him that it was against restaurant policy to allow people to sleep on the premises.
This man had responded by becoming very upset and had begun to yell at the victim.
This man then further demonstrated his displeasure with the proceedings by pulling his pants down and urinating on the seat of the booth (clearly another violation of company policy?).
The victim explained to the officers that he had then asked the man to leave the restaurant.
This man then walked to the lobby of the restaurant whereupon he apparently sat down and refused to leave.
The man then took a business card holder off the desk and hit the employee several times across the buttocks with it.
The officers found this man and he was arrested and charged with assault and urinating in a public place. Bail was set at $20,000.
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.