A 44-year-old Los Angeles woman who tried to sneak away from paying her bill at a Santa Monica Pier restaurant was arrested on Thursday, March 26.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company at 11:24 pm in order to investigate a woman who had refused to pay for her food.
The officers arrived and spoke with staff members who told them that a man and a woman had entered the location and ordered drinks and dinner. When it came time to settle the check the woman had produced a credit card in order to pay the $88.78 bill.
The staff member had run the card but it had been declined.
When the staff member had told the woman that the card had been declined the woman had responded by telling the staff member that she didn’t have any other way with which to pay for the food and drinks.
The woman had then discreetly slipped out of the restaurant and her male companion had added that he too did not have any means to pay for the food and that he was ostensibly a guest of the woman.
The officers located the woman and she was taken into custody under the provisions afforded by a private person’s arrest.
This L.A. resident was charged with defrauding an innkeeper. Bail information was not available at the time of going to press.
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.
