Was Real-Life Hamburglar Grilled by the Police?

Stupid-criminal-trick honors go to the guy who was found with a shopping cart near a burglarized hamburger stand in South-Central Los Angeles. Police couldn’t help but notice that the cart contained a cash drawer. And that the suspect was carrying money in one hand and a cold hamburger in the other. A hamburger to go, obviously.

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EARSAY? LAPD Lt. Dave Rock wrote away to a hotel in Portugal for vacation information but, after reading the reply, thinks that staying there might be a “bad” idea (see accompanying).

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TEN YEARS AGO: Malibu authorities reacted with shock when Honorary Mayor Martin Sheen declared the beachfront town “a sanctuary for aliens and the homeless,” as well as a “nuclear free zone.”

The local Chamber of Commerce pointed out that the actor’s only official duty was to promote the “Shop Malibu” campaign. Rush Limbaugh announced a contest to see which of the 125 cities that carried his radio show would win the right to “charter the first bus of indigents and illegal aliens to send to Malibu.”

No such busload ever arrived. And defenders of Sheen point out that Malibu has yet to be hit with a nuclear attack.

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WOULD VOTERS GO BALLISTIC? Harry Holton of L.A. sent along the newsletter of the Hollywoodland Homeowners Assn., which mentioned a proposal for an ambitious tribute.

The article said the association proposed a ballot issue to raise funds “for the purpose of carving likenesses of some of Hollywoodland Homeowners Association’s greatest presidents into the massive granite outcroppings on Mount Lee.”

You knew that entertainment folks in Hollywood had big egos, but homeowners presidents? Some members of the group expressed alarm--until they found out that the unsigned article was the work of a local comic.

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AN L.A. MOMENT: Alan Kroeber was at a carwash in Hollywood when the worker tending to his car received a call--on a cell phone. The worker kept polishing the car while he spoke. Kroeber couldn’t tell whether the party on the other end of the line was his agent, publicist or screenwriting partner.

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AND DON’T FEED THE WORKERS: Philip Weiner took a shot of a Metrolink sign at Union Station that is an adaptation of a warning usually seen at zoos (see photo).

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NO BIG MAC ATTACK: Don’t know if you heard about it, but that was quite an unexpected endorsement that a Baldwin Park-born business received from Army Staff Sgt. Andrew Ramirez of East L.A. Ramirez, one of the three soldiers who was held prisoner by Yugoslavia, said after his release that one of the first things he wanted was a hamburger from In-N-Out.

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WISE BEYOND HIS YEARS: A Sierra Madre schoolteacher showed a science magazine to some third-graders, mentioning that it was the type of publication read by college graduates.

One student piped up: “I can tell you are a college graduate.”

“How?” the teacher asked.

“By the way you wear your sweater around your shoulders,” he said.

“Oh, yes--preppie style,” she agreed.

miscelLAny:

Customers in local La Salsa restaurants were invited to fill out Cinco de Mayo greeting cards for U.S. troops overseas, and more than 2,000 did so.

At least two scrawled likenesses of none other than Monica Lewinsky. “We were surprised by that,” said spokesman Matt Hagan.

One of those cards made a pun about the weight-conscious Lewinsky being the “national figure.”

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.