Dogged Tenant Faces Eviction for Sake of Best Friend

Gaetano Spinosa is no Corporal Rusty. And his dog, Taur, is certainly no Rin Tin Tin.

Yet it would take the entire cavalry from that 1950s television show to make the 35-year-old unemployed medical lab technician part with his aging, limping pooch.

Just ask the management of the New Palace residential hotel, which is going to court on Friday to have Spinosa--and Taur--evicted.

For months, hotel managers have been trying to persuade Spinosa to join 40 other former New Palace tenants in finding shelter elsewhere to make way for a multimillion-dollar renovation of the downtown building.

Since the rehab project involves a $1-million loan from the state’s Department of Housing, the New Palace has been obligated by law to pay tenants up to $250 in moving expenses. The hotel is also bound to help former tenants find comparable living quarters--or pay the difference in rent if the new apartment costs more--during the structural face lift. Former tenants who were relocated are eligible to return at their old rents.

Searching for a Place

Spinosa said that sounded like a fair deal, and he has been searching for places that will accept him and his dog. The only catch: New landlords want to charge $90 to $180 more a month than the $260 Spinosa now pays to the New Palace.

But the hotel refuses to pay the difference, a stalemate that has left Spinosa to roam the empty hotel as its last remaining tenant.

While it has been no secret that Spinosa has kept his pet tied to the hotel’s back door since moving in a year ago, the New Palace never officially approved of Taur’s residency, said hotel attorney Ed Whittler.

“We’re saying he never had a right to a dog,” Whittler said. “When he leased the premises, he wasn’t leased the room with the understanding that the dog would be there. . . . The fact that he had a dog and he let it sleep in his car or tied it up outside doesn’t mean we permitted a dog.”

Since hotel rules and receipts expressly forbid pets, it is under no legal requirement to pay extra money so Taur can find a new home, Whittler said. The hotel, at 480 Elm St., is owned by the Downtown Senior Center, a nonprofit organization headed by Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s twin sister, Mavourneen.

“We’re not going to have a nonprofit organization pay more than they’re legally required to pay because of him having a dog that he was not allowed to have,” Whittler said.

Not true, claims Spinosa and his attorney, Richard Steiner of the Legal Aid Society of San Diego.

“What makes this case ridiculous is there is no dispute that the dog has been there for months,” said Steiner, who contends that the hotel benefited from its “symbiotic” relationship with Taur.

On Alert for Prowlers

The part-huskie, part-samoyed has been helpful in alerting hotel management to possible prowlers in the rear parking lot, Steiner said. “The dog barks, and management checks out who might be out there,” he said.

Spinosa said he also occasionally takes Taur off his leash at the back door and uses the dog to check for vagrants and dangerous types that might lurk in the darkened stairwells running under the hotel’s front porch.

“I think it really stinks after me and my dog put ourselves on the line physically for this place,” Spinosa said about his disagreement with hotel management. He said the New Palace, which in October gave him a 90-day notice to vacate, wants to “leave me standing in the cold, and I don’t appreciate it.”

Spinosa bristled at the hotel’s suggestion that he abandon Taur and take a cheaper room in a no-pets hotel.

“I told them, ‘No way! He’s just like my son,’ ” Spinosa said of his 12-year-old dog, who limps noticeably. “I brought him up like you would a kid--explaining what things are. He’s very smart, too.”

Attempts to head off a court battle have failed. Whittler said the hotel and its management company, Cotton Ritchie, have offered Spinosa $1,600 if he would pack up and leave immediately; Spinosa is holding out for $5,000, although the state maximum for relocation benefits is $4,000 a tenant.

The fight is over much more than money, said Steiner. He said his client is trying to strike a blow for the “powerless and needy population” that lives in a dwindling number of residential hotels downtown.

Last Resident of Hotel

“These are not the kind of people who say, ‘Oh, you’ll hear from my lawyer,’ ” said Steiner.

Meanwhile, the impasse has turned Spinosa into the Last Emperor of the New Palace, where furniture has been moved into the lobby in anticipation of the renovation.

Spinosa said he doesn’t mind the solitude, but he’s ticked that the hotel has stopped giving him a weekly change of bed sheets and cleaning the bathroom he uses down the hall.

Hotel management has its own complaints.

“It’s extremely expensive,” Whittler said about Spinosa’s holdout. “They (hotel management) is running the building. They’re keeping a staff there 24 hours a day. There’s the maintenance cost, the heating. It’s literally costing them thousands of dollars.”