People and Events

The big time is over for Ch. NMK’s Brittania V. Sibelstein, known to her friends simply as Britt, after a near major triumph in New York City.

Actually, Britt did very well. She won best of breed at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show at Madison Square Garden last week. Britt, a German short-haired pointer co-owned by Dr. Gary Stone of Beverly Hills, was beaten out for best in show by a Pomeranian.

Britt, says Stone, “was very disappointed. She thought she had won the show. When the judge announced the decision, she jumped up and started to run out in the ring.”

Britt, who was top sporting dog in the country for 1987 and has won numerous other awards, is, Stone adds, “a very showy bitch . . . very animated with super personality. That is what wins for her quite a bit.”

(She’s not alone there.)

In any event, Britt is coming up on the ripe old age of 4 and will now retire from heavy competition. “She’s going to be bred now,” Stone said. “She’s either going to fly to Texas or we will fly the Texas stud dog here.”

More and more often, local judges are ordering that, as a condition of probation, a convicted drug dealer may not carry a telephone pager, or beeper.

The new courtroom wrinkle, says Carol Koelle, director of central adult investigation for the Los Angeles County Probation Department, came after various law enforcement agencies pointed out that use of the gadget was growing among street dealers getting calls from customers.

Probation officials mulled over the legalities of banning use of the devices by convicted dealers and finally decided to recommend such a condition to judges “in cases where appropriate,” Koelle says.

“Even high school dealers have gotten to the point of sophistication that they wear beepers,” Koelle points out. “Why would a high school student wear a beeper? He’s sure not waiting for the principal to call.”

This, according to the Venice-based Family Planning Centers, is National Condom Week. It began on Sunday, Valentine’s Day, which the organization apparently saw as more appropriate than the Fourth of July.

To mark the occasion, FPC set up a booth on the boardwalk at Venice over the weekend, offering anyone who wanted them two free condoms and public health information. T-shirts promoting the use of condoms were sold to help support the nonprofit group.

A spokesman for the centers said they gave out 1,300 condoms in 10 hours, then ran out.

David M. Latt, a senior at Loyola Marymount University, is holding an invitation-only preview tonight of his short experimental film “Change of Face,” which explores the daydreams of a disillusioned businessman.

Latt, according to his co-producer, Joel Heller, managed to produce a $200,000 film for only $12,000 (which he borrowed or otherwise obtained from parents and friends) by hitting up Columbia Pictures Corp., Panavision, television station KNBC and others for help.

Panavision loaned him a 16-millimeter camera, Columbia gave him some footage from a feature film and KNBC gave him some news clips, for instance. That left him with the problem of how to get his film seen by anyone who counted in Hollywood.

So, says Heller, 21, he rented the Directors Guild of America screening hall on Sunset Boulevard for this evening and sent out invitations to agents, studio executives and just about everybody else he could think of.

Heller says the response was good enough that there will be two showings. Which shouldn’t be hard. The film is only 21 minutes long.

The Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors will hold a 1,000-meter ocean swim test at Santa Monica Beach on March 26 at 7 a.m. Those who make it will be eligible for oral interviews and physical examinations leading to possible jobs as county lifeguards.

Those who don’t will be saved, presumably.

Actually, says lifeguard Lt. Robert Buchanan, an applicant won’t even be able to try the open-ocean swim without proof from a certified swim coach that he or she has swum 1,000 meters in a regulation-size pool in 18 minutes or less.

Even so, he notes, “every year we find we have a few people who get cramps or a little hypothermia because of ocean conditions.”