A 51-year-old Santa Monica man was arrested on Wednesday, Feb.19 for failing to pay for a cab ride to a Venice restaurant.
At approximately 2:20 am on this day, a taxi cab driver for Metro Cab walked into the Santa Monica Police Department headquarters to report that he picked up a fare in the 2600 block of Main Street and took him to the area of Lincoln Avenue and Rose Avenue.
The customer entered a nearby restaurant telling the cab driver that he would be back with money for the fare. After 10 minutes the customer did not re-appear, so the cab driver went into the restaurant.
The customer said that he lost his wallet and could not pay.
He asked the cab driver to take him to the bar he was at earlier, to find his wallet.
He was taken back to the bar, which by now, was closed.
The cab driver convinced the customer to get back into his cab and be taken to the police station, to which the customer complied.
Once there, the cab driver told the officer at the station that he wanted to place the customer under arrest for failure to pay for the fare.
The suspect was charged with defrauding an innkeeper.
Bail was set at $500.
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.
