Santa Monica police arrested a 29-year-old Los Angeles man on Friday, May 1, after stealing two cigars from a local business, then being caught smoking them shortly after in Palisades Park.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department who had been assigned to the downtown bicycle patrol unit were called at 4:05 pm to attend to a theft that had just occurred from the Lone Wolf Cigar Company, located in the 200 block of Broadway.
The suspect, described as a male Hispanic in his early 20s, had allegedly entered the store and taken two cigars, worth about $70, from a display shelf and left the store without paying, fleeing westbound on Broadway.
The officers went in search of the suspect and soon found him sitting in the 1500 block of Palisades Park.
The suspect appeared to be relaxing and enjoying the flavors of one of the reportedly stolen cigars that the suspect was smoking at the time. Smoking in Palisades Park is a violation of a Santa Monica Municipal Code.
The officers approached the suspect and he told them that he had taken the cigars because he thought the manager of the store had disrespected him and as a result he felt compelled to “prove a point.”
After the manager of the cigar store had positively identified the suspect as being the man who had stolen the cigars, the officers arrested this L.A. resident and he was charged with smoking a cigar in Palisades Park as well as petty theft. Bail was set at $1,000.
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.
