60 Arrested in Santa Monica Hotel Protest

A demonstration by about 500 people outside Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel on Thursday was well organized and peaceful, police and protest leaders agreed, even though about 60 demonstrators were arrested.

Led by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, which is trying to organize the hotel’s workers, the demonstration snarled traffic along Ocean Avenue. The protesters were arrested for unlawful assembly and failing to disperse.

“I hope they have a conscience,” one demonstrator, Favian Gonzalez, a waiter at the hotel, said of Democratic Convention delegates staying there. “We’re not telling them not to stay at the hotel. But if they’re Democrats, they’re for the people.”