Checchi Runs Up the Lunch Tab, Campaign Finance Report Shows

How does a man worth $550 million-plus run for governor?

Based on Al Checchi’s latest campaign finance report, filed earlier this week, he and his aides may be trying to do lunch with every voter in California.

The Checchi campaign’s restaurant spending far outpaces that of Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who along with U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Torrance) also is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in the June 2 primary.

Checchi’s report showed that his self-financed campaign ran up food and wine bills of more than $19,000 in the last six months of 1997. The bulk of the restaurant tabs were under $200.

Staffers dined at trendy spots in Los Angeles, many of them on the Westside--Shutters on the Beach, Jozu, the Ivy, Ca Brea. There were a few steakhouses and more traditional places, such as the Pacific Dining Car. While there wasn’t a Burger King in the bunch, there was a Marie Callender’s. The tab there: $107.

Darry Sragow, Checchi’s campaign manager, said many of the meals came early in the campaign when the team of consultants was being organized, and they were getting to know one another.

“It’s something you won’t see [in the next report],” Sragow said. Also, some of the food money was spent at events sponsored by Checchi’s campaign, and the candidate picked up the bill.

Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who appears to be far more of a meat and potatoes guy, spent even more than Checchi on food--in excess of $32,000, his campaign finance report for the second half of 1997 shows.

Unlike Checchi’s restaurant bills, Lungren’s spending came in large blocks because he was raising money and had to foot the bill for the donors’ food. Checchi, the former chairman of Northwest Airlines, is his own source of money. He has raised no money from other donors.

All was not work for Lungren, who has no major opponent for the Republican nomination. Lungren and his wife parlayed political donations into the most impressive campaign-funded trip of any of the major candidates.

They billed the campaign $4,328 for a weeklong stay in London in October.

Dave Puglia, Lungren’s campaign spokesman, said Lungren was “invited by the government to meet with government and judicial officials, and on the political side, to meet with businesses looking to expand in California.”

Puglia noted that state law permits campaign money to be used for such excursions. It’s a “family-friendly code,” Puglia added, so Mrs. Lungren’s expenses could be billed to the campaign, too.