Former Patient Gives Hospital a Helping Hand

Who is James P. Strain and why is he asking well-heeled San Diegans to donate money to Sharp Memorial Hospital?

Strain’s tale of recovery from a broken neck after a January, 1986, car accident, and his appreciation for the care he received from Sharp’s nurses and therapists, has become the centerpiece of Sharp’s annual year-end campaign for big-buck donations.

“He told us he wanted to do something for us since he was so overwhelmed by the care he received and, since it was time for our fund-raising appeal, we asked him to send a solicitation letter to a selected list of donors,” said Phillis Allen, senior vice president for the Sharp Hospitals Foundation.

And so it was that a letter from Strain--on personalized stationery but with a return address the same as Sharp’s--was sent out earlier this month to a targeted audience of philanthropists. “Our writers sat down with him, but it was essentially his letter,” Allen said.

Strain, an engineering manager for Oak Communications in Rancho Bernardo, said he was pleased to help out. “I simply wrote a letter to the nurses, telling them how much I appreciated what they did for me, and then the hospital asked if they could use it in a fund-raising appeal. I was flattered,” Strain said.

He doesn’t think too many personal acquaintances will see his effort. “Most of my friends,” he said, “aren’t at the income level of the people who are getting the letter.”

Talk About Incentive

Along with no-smoking sections in restaurants and nonsmoking airline flights, we now have entire nonsmoking floors of office buildings.

The 10 offices that make up the second floor at Trolley Plaza Suites, 6th Avenue and C Street in downtown San Diego, is being leased only to tenants who promise not to light up. So far, three offices are occupied.

Among the tenants, said Paul Richard, is a three-pack-a-day man in the import-export business who has been told in no uncertain terms that because of insurance regulations and in the interest of clean air, he will not be allowed to light up while at the office.

“I told him there would be no leeway and if he lights even one cigarette, he’ll be bounced out and lose his rent and deposit,” Richard said.

“He said: ‘Fine, I understand. I’ve been trying to quit, and this might finally get me to do it.’ ”

Then There Were Four

The big-screen, 985-seat Loma Theatre quietly closed last Thursday, ending a 33 1/2-year run in San Diego with, appropriately enough, a showing of the suspense movie, “Fatal Attraction.”

The theater site is owned by Asset Development Co., which has other plans for the property.

The Loma’s closing leaves only four other big-screen theaters in San Diego: the Grossmont Cinema in La Mesa, Cinema 21 and Valley Circle in Mission Valley and the Cinerama in East San Diego. Already, the Cinerama is scheduled to be reduced to an eight-screen multiplex.

Mann Theaters, which owned the Loma Theatre, said it has no plans at the current time to split up the Cinema 21 and Valley Circle theaters into mini-theaters.

Andy Friedenberg, director of the Cinema Society of San Diego, stood outside and watched as less than 200 moviegoers attended the final show. Not everyone, he said, seemed to realize this was its finale; Mann did not promote the fade-to-dark.

Friedenberg noted that with the death on Dec. 10 of Denis Sanders, the Academy Award-winning resident film maker at San Diego State University, and the passing of the Loma a week later, “it wasn’t a good week for the San Diego film community. I felt like I went to two funerals.”

Last-Minute Gift Ideas

In our Sports-is-Business Department, these items:

- Citibank has come out with a special-edition Visa card featuring the logos of 27 National Football League teams, including the San Diego Chargers. (The New York Giants have a separate promotion going.)

The local team’s lightning-bolt football helmet is on the face of the navy blue credit card, and each time you use it, a donation will be made to several charities, including Children’s Hospital of San Diego and the San Diego Arthritis Foundation.

Citibank executive James Bailey said the company was “delighted to be able to offer (the card) to the millions of Chargers fans around the country.” We don’t know when he did his last head count, but the card might have been more marketable, say, five weeks ago.

- Jessops Jewelers is selling a solid gold facsimile of a ticket to next month’s Super Bowl XXII, fashioned as a key chain.

The pricey souvenir is 1 1/2 inches by 3 3/4 inches, and runs $2,500. A sterling silver key chain comes in at $90, which is $10 cheaper than a paper ticket to the game.

Two-Time Losers

You might recall how, a couple of months ago, 46 Vista residents climbed aboard a city-sponsored fun bus for a quick gambling run to Las Vegas, only to be robbed at gunpoint of $3,800 in cash just as the bus began to pull away from the curb.

Well, the group finally got in their red-eye trip to Vegas earlier this month--and returned, only to find six of their cars vandalized in the parking lot. What price, Vegas?