Yachting Set Mutinies Over Hotel Dress Code : Marina del Rey: Ritz Carlton says its ban on jeans, soft-soled shoes is for patrons who expect elegance.

This dress code is causing waves.

When the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey opened last October, it brought with it a time-honored Ritz tradition: no jeans or soft-soled shoes in the cocktail lounge after 4 p.m. That is when afternoon tea starts amid the plush green love seats and beneath the crystal chandeliers--a setting, in other words, in which Topsiders just won’t do.

But now the dress code is causing some in the yachting set to cry mutiny.

At issue is the restriction on tennis shoes and deck shoes, the footwear of choice among yachting aficionados. Critics of the dress code say that marina hotels, bars and restaurants should expect their clientele to be dressed casually.

“I have clients buying quarter-of-a-million dollar boats and they are not about to change their jeans or their shoes to get a drink,” said Rick Ermshar, a marina yacht broker and editor of a boating magazine. “These people come here to let their hair down, to get away from the pressures of their jobs. The attire is part of their experience.”

Bill Smith, a marina boat owner and captain for chartered yachts, sounded a similar protest.

“The lounge is uncomfortably formal,” Smith said. “These are the new kids on the block trying to establish a dress code that is completely inappropriate to this community.”

At least five marina boat owners and captains say they know of colleagues who have been asked to leave the hotel lounge because of inappropriate attire, but no one has kept count of how many patrons have been involved in such incidents.

Hotel general manager John Drazinski insists that the hotel has been unfairly criticized. Critics, he said, fail to understand that the principal business of a hotel is renting rooms.

“We market our hotel to the international traveler, patrons who expect luxury and elegance,” Drazinksi said. “Our dress codes are part of that tradition. We observe them because that is what our clientele expect and ask for. I’d have to close my doors if my lounge was packed but my rooms were empty.”

Drazinski said the hotel welcomes seagoing customers in the cocktail lounge in the afternoons, as long as they are dressed appropriately. The hotel, in fact, has eight boats available for guests to charter--but guests returning to the lounge after a day at sea are still expected to do so properly attired.

To some mariners, the policy is a sound one.

“The Ritz is a luxury escape,” said Aaron Hassman, a professional captain in the marina. “It can’t be expected to establish outside standards. All of the yachtsmen who use the Ritz dockings are asked to observe the dress code. I haven’t heard a single one complain about the policy. It’s the few nonconformists who do.”

Hassman said the dress code is needed to keep out homeless people who are increasingly settling in parks around the marina.

Hassman acknowledges that he himself was asked to leave the cocktail lounge in November when he arrived in jeans and deck shoes. But, he said, he did not mind changing his clothes, which he did at a nearby boat.

Other supporters of the dress code have recommended that those insulted by it take their thirst elsewhere. In fact, there are a number of more casual restaurants and bars in the marina for yachtsmen to visit, including the Dockside Cafe in the Marina del Rey Hotel and the Jamaica Bay Inn lounge.

Some yachtsmen, such as Ermshar, have recommended compromises to solve the problem. Ermshar suggested that the Ritz Carlton suspend its dress code on weekends, when the majority of local sailors visit the marina. General manager Drazinski has balked at the suggestion, saying the weekend is the hotel’s busiest time.