> ## 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. # NAACP may protest Shutters on the Beach - URL: https://www.smdp.com/naacp-may-protest-shutters-on-the-beach/ - Published: 2002-12-17T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T01:07:21.000Z - Author: Andrew Fixmer - Tags: Environment, Venice, #archive-import *Hotel has been trying to make ammends* An alleged refusal of service to black community leaders two months ago may lead to national protests of a local luxury beach hotel. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People may protest Shutters on the Beach Hotel for allegedly refusing leaders of the Los Angeles African Methodist Episcopal church entrance to its restaurant. After a meeting of its membership Saturday, the Santa Monica-Venice chapter of the NAACP voted to ask its regional office to investigate the event, which occurred in September. “(Shutters management) fails to grasp the gravity of what they have wrought,” said Darrell Goode, president of the NAACP’s local chapter. “So we have to keep going to the next stages until they recognize the wrong that has been done.” A response from the regional NAACP organization in Los Angeles is expected by Thursday. The response could result in protests, including picketing and marches, or a letter writing campaign. Shutters considers the event a “non-incident,” said hotel spokesman Seth Jacobson, who also represents luxury hotels opposed to the living wage, which includes Shutters. The living wage would have mandated businesses in the coastal zone making more than $5 million a year to pay their employees between $10.50 and $12.25, depending on whether health benefits were included. Voters narrowly defeated the ordinance on Nov. 5. The AME religious leaders left the hotel’s parking lot — where they were kept waiting about half an hour by hotel security guards — before word from management was received to allow the men to enter the restaurant. Jacobson said the only reason the four AME figures were stopped in the first place was because they were coming from a living wage rally that had just occurred on Ocean Front Walk between Shutters and neighboring hotel Casa Del Mar. Following the protest, Santa Monica AME Rev. Ronald Williams attempted to take Los Angeles AME Bishop H.H. Brookins to lunch at the hotel’s restaurant, 1 Pico. However, the hotel’s director of security Guy Groves reportedly refused to allow Williams, Brookins and two other AME officials to enter the hotel until it was approved by the hotel’s management, according to religious leaders. Groves told the men he was scared to allow them in because “windows might get broken,” according to Williams. After waiting about 30 minutes in the hotel’s parking lot, the four AME pastors left angrily, Williams said. “I felt insulted and embarrassed,” he said. “I had my presiding bishop with me — my boss was with me.” After previous living wage rallies, some protesters had entered Shutters and Casa Del Mar and caused disturbances, so the hotel had instituted a policy of not admitting protesters into the hotel, Jacobson said. “The security guard, who is African American, stopped them because he was-n’t sure of their intentions,” Jacobson said. “He stopped them because he was doing his job. “After talking with senior management they were cleared to enter the hotel,” he added. “There is no insensitivity to African Americans or any other race. It is the position of Shutters that anyone can enter the hotel.” Even so, the NAACP’s Goode said such a policy should be enforced with some subjectivity. He said the four men were dressed in suits and mild-mannered, and obviously posed no threat to the hotel. “They had been sitting out there for a long time watching other people dressed like they were but of other colors walk in just fine,” Goode said. “You have to go on their demeanor; not by the way they look or appear. “There is no rhyme or reason for the way they responded to these individuals the way they did,” he added. The local NAACP chapter had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a resolution of the incident over the past several weeks, Goode said. At a meeting called by Tim Dubois — an executive at the company that owns Shutters and Casa Del Mar, hotel officials apologized for the incident, donated $2,500 to the AME church, and paid a consultant $5,000 to conduct a sensitivity training for those employees involved, according to both sides. Goode said the hotel also committed to hosting a fund-raising dinner to help raise money for the local NAACP chapter. However, after the Nov. 5 election when the living wage ordinance was defeated, Shutters went back on its word, Goode said. Shutters officials tell the story differently. They say they agreed to help out with the dinner, but they were shocked when they received a letter from the NAACP asking for between $70,000 and $80,000 for the event. Hotel officials agreed to provide five to 10 free rooms for the event’s out-of-town guests and agreed to buy one table — a package Jacobson said hotel managers estimate would cost between $17,000 to $20,000. “We are willing to come to the plate,” Jacobson said. “That should be obvious from our actions.” Goode said now that the election is over and the living wage is no longer in the spotlight, he believes hotel officials think they don’t have to answer for their actions. “It’s an insulting offer and it wouldn’t address restitution or reparations of any sort of what we consider a discriminatory act,” Goode said. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 17, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121702.pdf?ref=smdp.com)