Yo-ho-ho and a rum and Coke:A storm...

Yo-ho-ho and a rum and Coke:

A storm warning should have been issued when the new Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey established its dress code.

For many yachtsmen were shocked to find that the posh hotel won’t allow sneakers or rubber-soled boat shoes into its cocktail lounge.

The Ritz-Carlton maitre d’ would “be shocked to learn the price of a good pair of deck shoes!” one outraged reader wrote the local Argonaut newspaper. “Why did this company insist on building their hotel (in the marina) if they are going to exclude yachting people?”

While it hasn’t relaxed the shoes restriction, the hotel is sending a peacemaker in the form of a publicist to speak to the Marina-based California Yacht Club on Jan. 31. “This is a boating event,” the yacht’s publication jokingly advised, “so wear your best boat shoes.”

The furor has even spawned a second debate. One dress-code advocate referred to himself as a “boater” in the Argonaut, prompting another letter-writer to point out that a boater is defined by Webster as “a stiff straw hat.”

Community activist Marilyn Cole says the 6th L.A. City Council District is going to the dogs, anyway, so she wanted to nominate Chutney, her Yorkshire terrier, to run against incumbent Ruth Galanter.

Unfortunately, Chutney, 10, couldn’t get on the ballot.

“I called the city election board and they told me she had to be a registered voter and she had to be a person,” Cole said.

Cole then entered the race on behalf of Chutney, who, she points out, “is much closer to the grass roots” than Galanter.

Cole says Chutney is a slow-growth advocate. In fact, at 5 pounds in weight, Chutney has hardly grown at all.

From our Children-of-the-Drought file:

When her mother turned on the windshield wipers in the rain, Lena Brooks, age 2, asked: “Mommy, what’s that on your window?”

As if car fumes aren’t bad enough. . . .

Traffic stalled on the San Diego Freeway Thursday morning when a trailer tipped over in Inglewood, spilling 15 tons of horse manure.

And completing our trilogy of automotive news. . . .

A sports car that stereo thieves might want to avoid was spotted the other night coming out of the Criminal Courts garage, where judges and prosecutors park. It had a personalized license plate that read, ominously enough, “25-Life.”

Roto-Rooter is holding a nationwide contest to find the company worker who extracts the largest branch from a drain or sewer line before Dec. 31, 1991. Among the early leaders is an L.A. worker who reeled in a root measuring 46 feet, 9 inches. Makes for a nice trophy above his fireplace.

“All Plugged Up,” a photo by Timothy Wells, is one of several works in an exhibit of work by art students who are bothered by allergies that even Roto Rooter can’t relieve. The nosy display, “Beyond Symptoms” will be open to the public Jan. 17-18 at the ABC Entertainment Center in Century City.

Wells said that he’s usually stricken during the winter months, making him “feel like I’ve got a cork up my nose.”

At least the manure spill wouldn’t have bothered him.

miscelLAny:

When the Vanderbilt Cup sports car races were run through the streets of Santa Monica early in the century, the accident-prone corner of Ocean Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard became known as Death Curve.