A 33-year-old homeless man was arrested and charged with trespass and theft following his attempt to steal 18 bags of almonds and loitering in a Starbucks’ female restroom.
On Friday, April 3, at 8:37 am officers of the Santa Monica Police Department, who were on routine patrol in the downtown Santa Monica area, received the second of two calls that morning concerning a man who had been loitering in the female restroom at a Starbucks located on Third Street Promenade.
About an hour before, the same suspect had been ordered to stay away from the location by the officers at the request of the staff members of the coffee shop, and on this occasion the man had returned and stuffed 18 bags of almonds inside a shopping bag that he had been carrying.
The officers learned that a staff member at the store had then asked the man if he had intended to pay for the almonds and that the man had said that he did indeed wish to purchase the nuts.
The man had then stood at the register, placed the almonds on the counter, and stood there for several minutes until the police arrived.
The manager asked the officers to arrest this man for trespassing and so the officers obliged.
When the officers performed their required search of the suspect, they discovered in the suspect’s backpack a container of apple sauce also stolen from Starbucks as well as some other personal care items and energy drinks that had been stolen a day before from a nearby convenience store.
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.
