> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Delta clear for layover in SM
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/delta-clear-for-layover-in-sm/
- Published: 2003-05-23T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:09:35.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Business, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

*Hotel contract was threatened by homeless issue downtown*

A $30,000 monthly contract between Delta Airlines and a local hotel nearly fell apart last month after airline workers said they didn’t feel safe in Santa Monica.

The large homeless population downtown was at the root of the complaint, said city officials and police, who met with airline and hotel representatives in a successful effort to save the deal.

Delta pilots and flight attendants have kept about 30 rooms a night at the Four Points Sheraton on Pico Boulevard for more than two years, with a monthly contract that exceeds $30,000, hotel officials said.

Hotel bed taxes on the tab generate about $3,600 a month for the city, which also would have lost untold dollars in sales tax revenue if Delta had pulled out.

Kathy Dodson, executive director of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber receives scores of letters each year from tourists and residents upset at the number of homeless people downtown.

Dodson added that homelessness and vagrancy were the overwhelming top concerns in a recent chamber survey of local businesses.

“We know it is effecting them in an extreme manner,” she said. “But it’s very difficult to quantify.”

Mayor Richard Bloom and Michael D’Amodio, the general manager at the Sheraton, said concern over the Delta contract stemmed from two or three flight attendants who were upset about the hundreds of homeless people who gather in front of City Hall on Saturdays for free food given out by church groups.

“The reaction from Delta was a little over the top,” said Bloom, who met personally with Delta officials to help save the contract. “They needed to hear the truth about Santa Monica, which is that we’re a very safe community.”

D’Amodio agrees. “I think it’s kind of a correlation that people inaccurately draw,” he said, pointing out that police were never called by Delta workers and crime rates in Santa Monica continue to decline. “There’s no crime in being homeless.”

After the special meeting with Bloom and a representative from the Santa Monica Police Department, Delta officials, who had reportedly begun looking at alternative hotel arrangements in the South Bay, agreed to renew their contract with the Sheraton.

“We feel comfortable,” said Anthony Black, a Delta spokesman. “We’re going to stay there after all.”

D’Amodio chalked the change of heart up to the response by the SMPD and Bloom, whose presence opened the eyes of Delta officials.

“Delta is very, very responsive to what their employees are saying,” he said. “But the bottom line is the vast majority of their crews love to stay in Santa Monica. It’s a great place to have a layover for two or three days.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 23, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/052303.pdf?ref=smdp.com)