A man selling fruit on Santa Monica Beach was arrested on Saturday, Aug. 15, during a special Santa Monica Police Department special assignment.
At 12 pm Santa Monica police officers were working an assignment that required them to identify and intercept illegal vendors due to reports of an increase in such activity in recent weeks.
The officers, who were positioned in the 1500 block of Santa Monica Beach, soon spotted a likely individual who was carrying a tray of mixed fruit.
The mixed fruit was in individual bags and the officers watched as the suspect was waved over by a woman on the beach.
The officers watched as the suspect kneeled down, took a bag of mixed fruit off the tray and hand it to the woman in exchange for monetary remuneration. The officers then witnessed this suspect solicit other beachgoers, blatantly attempting to entice them into paying for and eating his fruit.
The officers then sprang their trap and arrested this suspect, aged 30 years, and a resident of Los Angeles, and charged him with illegal vending and vending without a health permit. 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.
