{"id":450143,"date":"2010-03-20T02:43:53","date_gmt":"2010-03-20T06:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef01310fbf7e78970c"},"modified":"2010-03-20T02:43:53","modified_gmt":"2010-03-20T06:43:53","slug":"santa-monica-sushi-restaurant-to-close-after-serving-whale-meat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/450143","title":{"rendered":"Santa Monica sushi restaurant to close after serving whale meat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xhtml\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c630a53ef01310fbf8488970c-pi\" style=\"FLOAT: right\"><img decoding=\"async\" a=\"\" against=\"\" airport.=\"\" al=\"\" angeles=\"\" at=\"\" been=\"\" charges=\"\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c630a53ef01310fbf8488970c alt= \" credit:=\"\" criminal=\"\" filed=\"\" have=\"\" hip=\"\" hump,=\"\" los=\"\" monica=\"\" restaurant=\"\" santa=\"\" seib=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c630a53ef01310fbf8488970c-320wi\" style=\"MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px\" sushi=\"\" the=\"\" times=\"\" \/><\/a> A Santa Monica sushi restaurant facing federal charges for serving endangered whale meat appears set to close its doors Saturday, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehump.biz\/\">a statement posted to The Hump&#39;s website Friday<\/a> which called the decision a \u201cself-imposed punishment.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Hump hopes that by closing its doors, it will help bring awareness to the detrimental effect that illegal whaling has on the preservation of our ocean ecosystems and species,\u201d read the statement on the restaurant&#39;s longstanding website.<\/p>\n<p>Phone calls to the restaurant and its attorney were not answered late Friday. <\/p>\n<p>Federal prosecutors last week charged the owner and chef of the restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport with the illegal sale of whale meat in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum fine of $200,000.<\/p>\n<p>While the restaurant immediately took responsibility once it was charged, the charges came only after an undercover sting operation that was orchestrated by animal activists and the associate producer of the Oscar-winning documentary \u201cThe Cove.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The activists used a tiny video camera to record their payment of $600 for the omakase, or chef&#39;s choice, which included eight pieces of whale. The activists bagged samples of the meat and sent them to the Marine Mammal Institute, where they were determined to be Sei whale, an endangered species.<\/p>\n<p>In the online posting, The Hump also vowed to make a \u201csubstantial contribution\u201d to whale preservation or endangered species groups and apologized to the public for \u201cour illegal actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Tony Barboza <\/p>\n<p>Read more about the allegations: <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/la-me-whale11-2010mar11,0,500007.story\">Santa Monica sushi restaurant charged with illegally selling whale meat<\/a> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/opinion\/editorials\/la-ed-whale11-2010mar11,0,7727600.story\">Whale &#8212; it shouldn&#39;t be for dinner<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Criminal charges have been filed against the Hump, a hip sushi restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport. An attorney says the eatery has accepted &quot;responsibility for the wrongdoing&quot; and would pay a fine. <\/em><em>Credit: <span class=\"credit\"><span class=\"photographer\">Al Seib \/ Los Angeles Times<\/span><span class=\"dateYear\"><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Santa Monica sushi restaurant facing federal charges for serving endangered whale meat appears set to close its doors Saturday, according to a statement posted to The Hump&#39;s website Friday which called the decision a \u201cself-imposed punishment.&quot; \u201cThe Hump hopes that by closing its doors, it will help bring awareness to the detrimental effect that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-450143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}