The Rat Kept On Picketing

The day I visited Santa Monica’s new Loews Hotel a woman was circulating a petition condemning hotels and a man in a rat costume was picketing the main entrance.

The lady was circulating the petition because she was opposed to the “Miami-ization” of Santa Monica, a reference to the large number of hotels planned for the oceanfront.

The man in the rat suit was protesting the use of certain non-union carpenters during the time Loews was under construction.

I’m not sure what the significance of his costume was, but I had no intention of interviewing a rat to find out.

I cite those examples of foment to point out that nothing is ever accomplished easily in Santa Monica.

Loews has been opened less than a month and there are already two anti-hotel initiatives in the works.

One is citizen-oriented and opposes any new hotels on the beach, and the other is hotel-supported and opposes any other new hotels, except, of course, theirs.

The lady with the petition wanted to go even further. She would just deny all hotel permits and turn Loews into a haven for homeless vegetarians.

Welcome to Santa Monica.

The Rat Man and the angry petitioner notwithstanding, I stayed overnight in the Loews to see what it was all about. I liked the place.

That might prove unsettling to those who felt there was an egalitarian cant to my nature, but I’m just not the type to opt for the Spartan decor of a Motel 6 when I’ve got a shot at a $250-a-night room with an ocean view.

I did, however, experience a twinge of conscience when I looked down from my 7th-floor room to a group of homeless people below and wished they too could somehow sample the luxury of my surroundings.

“If we hadn’t eaten all that fruit in the room,” I said to my wife, “I would throw them some oranges.”

“You’re a real humanitarian,” she said.

When I reserved the room, by the way, I asked for the best accommodation available because this was a legitimate assignment and I had been informed that the L.A. Times would pick up the tab.

What I didn’t realize was there is a suite that goes for $1,750 a night. Fortunately, it wasn’t ready for occupancy and I was spared the necessity of having to explain a $1,750 room to expense-account monitors who spend their vacations in family tents at Lake Isabella.

Loews is interesting because it manages to convey a feeling of warmth even as it offers elements of luxury.

Children run through the lobby and singles in jeans swing by for pink drinks with little umbrellas in them before pairing off according to their astrological signs.

I doubt that many cowboys will mosey in for a quick beer (the pianist in the lobby probably doesn’t know “Okie from Muskogee”), but little people are not only tolerated but encouraged to feel at home.

This is in stark contrast to a Beverly Hills hotel that once denied me entrance into an elevator occupied by composer Burt Bacharach.

When a security guard stopped me from getting on I thought it had something to do with a breach in personal hygiene.

“Do I offend?” I whispered to my wife.

“Often,” she whispered back, “but that’s your job.”

“I mean, do I have body odor?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “I’m upwind.”

As it turned out, the hotel had a policy of allowing celebrities to ride alone in order to avoid uncomfortable proximity with the lumpen proletariat, a class best observed at a distance.

I doubt that such a policy will prevail at Loews. Even its gourmet dining room, a quiet gem of a place called Riva, tolerates with good humor those not accustomed to a selection of wine beyond red and white.

I don’t know my Assmannshausen from Night Train in a paper bag, but when I ordered a bottle of pinot grigio dell’Alto Adige, Riva manager Riccardo Aversano praised my selection with the same cultured ebullience he might offer the wine steward at Buckingham Palace.

The dinner was delicious, although I thought I had ordered swordfish and was served salmon instead. Maybe it was pink swordfish.

“If you didn’t drink martinis,” my wife said, “you’d remember what you ordered. I doubt that Elmer Dills ever forgot his entree selection.”

I am in sympathy with those who oppose wall-to-wall hotels along the beach, but I’m still glad Loews snuck in under the wire.

There ought to be a place for everything, despite protest. I’ve always said if you can’t stand the heat, you’d better get out of the rat suit.