Posted on 08/01/2012 9:00:36 AM PDT by Milagros
Pakistani Owner of Swanky Santa Monica Hotel: "Get the [expletive] Jews out of my Pool" By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus Published: July 30th, 2012 Latest update: July 31st, 2012
An upscale hotel on a Santa Monica, California, beach is an odd place to be singled out from a crowd and removed because you are Jewish, but that's what happened to 18 young professionals who are telling their story to a jury in a discrimination trial taking place in Santa Monica Superior Court this week.
Ari Ryan is the grandson of a Ukranian Jew who lost most of his family in the Holocaust and narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Nazis. Ryan's grandfather moved to Israel in 1942 and served as a captain in the Israel Defense Forces.
Seventy years later Ryan says he got a small taste of what his grandfather lived through, but rather than in the forests of the Ukraine, it took place at an upscale hotel in Santa Monica. Ryan and more than a dozen others have brought a lawsuit alleging anti-Semitic discrimination against them by a multi-millionaire Muslim American hotel owner.
Two years ago Ryan and other twenty- and thirty-something Jews planned to raise money to send children of fallen IDF soldiers to camp with a charity event at the Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica, California.
On the morning of July 11, 2010, Ryan and others arrived at the hotel and began setting up Friends of the IDF banners, literature and piles of shirts for the event guests.
But the event was aborted after, according to one employee's sworn testimony, the hotel's owner told staff members, "Get the [expletive deleted] Jews out of my pool." Then the hotel security and other employees began removing the materials and ordering the guests to leave.
Ryan said, "Anyone wearing a blue wristband," which identified them as being with the Friends of the IDF, "was asked to get out of the swimming pool and the hot tub." In fact, no one who was identifiable as Jewish was so much as "allowed to dip their feet in the water."
Tehmina (Tamie) Adaya, a Pakistani-American Muslim, is the owner of the Shangri-La. Her father, Ahmad Adaya, was a founding partner of the California real estate company IDS Real Estate Group. He also was a founder and benefactor of the New Horizon School for Muslim religious education in Southern California.
The father bought the Shangri-La Hotel in the 1980‘s and the daughter took it over in 2004, investing $30 million to renovate the property into a design award-winning opulent destination. In addition to the hotel, Adaya runs an upscale artist collective called the Crown Jewels which she blogs about at her site "Culture Shock to Culture Architect."
In the cross-complaint she initially filed, Adaya claimed Ryan and his friends were trespassing on the Shangri-La property and became unruly.
"Not so," said James Turken, managing partner of the California office of the DC-based law firm Dickstein, Shapiro, attorney for the plaintiffs. He explained that Adaya withdrew her complaint after he interviewed her, under oath, and she was unable to substantiate any of the allegations she had made.
Turken told The Jewish Press that witnesses will testify that, in addition to cursing the Jews and yelling at her staff to remove them from the pool, Adaya was heard saying, "my family will disown me," and that her "investors will be furious," if the plaintiffs remained on site.
The defense claims there was no discrimination and that, instead, the promoters of the event had failed to properly schedule the event with the hotel, and therefore they were trespassing.
According to Turken, however, all the necessary arrangements had been made in advance, as evidenced by the initial assistance provided by the Shangri-La employees, which included putting up a rope and stanchions and a check-in table. What's more, he said, the day before the event "the head of hotel security gave a briefing to the staff to prepare them for the crowd of 150 that were expected to attend."
The removal from the pool of Jews who were wearing Jewish-identified wristbands evokes a similar selection process of seventy years ago. Ryan, recalling his grandfather's legacy, said "I felt the weight of standing up to what he had to live through."
The plaintiffs are seeking $ 1 million from Adaya and the Shangri-La Hotel for emotional distress, attorneys' fees and other statutory damages. http://www.jewishpress.com/news/pakistani-owner-of-swanky-santa-monica-hotel-get-the-expletive-jews-out-of-my-pool/2012/07/30/
‘If the “jews” were members of the LGBT, then CNN and MSNBC would have 24/7 coverage of this.’
My thoughts exactly...
They may not be able to use discrimination to sue, but the inconvenience, and cost of any loss or damage to the items they brought with them. The fact that they did not have an opportunity to relocate at such a short notice.
if the hotel has signs saying no Jews allowed, it never would have happened. They need to post these signs....and see what that does for their business.
This is the first I’ve heard of this story, but if it had been a Christian owner expelling gays or Muslims from the premises, it would be front-page news.
You obviously didn’t know Lester Maddox.
“‘If the “jews” were members of the LGBT, then CNN and MSNBC would have 24/7 coverage of this.’”
But only if the owner was a Christian.
In the south I knew in the 50s and 60s discriminatory laws were strongly supported by the general population. White businesses observed those laws because they would have lost white customers if they didn't, even where no such laws existed, there were signs posted in restaurants and other businesses telling black people to go to the rear for service, black and white water fountains. Public swimming pools where no blacks were allowed. I lived there and witnessed these things.
Yes, I witnessed them, too, but things were already starting to change when government stepped in. Government had every right and duty to enforce equality before the law in public facilities and in voting, but no right to force private businesses to do anything. If we do not have freedom of association, then we have tyranny.
Check out what Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have to say on the subject of race discrimination.
I agree. But that cannot happen today because laws and court decisions have disallowed letting the market decide and now you will be punished both criminally and civilly for posting such a sign. Either way you will find yourself out of business but today it will cost you a whole lot more.
Thanks! :)
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Nonsense, they just don't eat them.
Did you even read the story?
It was a pre-arranged rental.
I believe the 14th Amendment has been used to supersede the freedom of association clause.
Not to suggest that if he threw out blacks, I'd oppose prosecution, but that's not the case. This is a civil dispute, apparently nothing about throwing Jews out of the hotel violates civil rights legislation.
BTW, if this were a private business, they could bar Jews and anyone else. When you open your doors to the general public, you've lost that defence of privacy.
The article indicates employees assisted in set up for the event, so it wasn’t a complete surprise.
Since they were in the pool, it is likely many of them already had checked into rooms at the hotel, therefore there is also a breach of contract.
Imagine the uproar if a charity event had been held for black orphans of Vets KIA instead of Jewish orphans of Vets KIA.
I guess Santa Monica just hates orphans or else they promote hate crimes based upon religion and parentage. Why hasn’t the state and the city jerked their business license to operate as a hotel? They are violating city permitting regulations.
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