Alleging that they were the victims of discrimination, Ryan, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, and 17 other individuals later filed suit against Adaya and the hotel under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which says no 
business establishment may discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color or religion. In addition to Adaya, the suit names Indus Investments Inc., the corporate owner and operator of the hotel.
Ari Ryan and other young leaders of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces gathered on the afternoon of July 11, 2010, at the Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica for a charitable event. Soon after the party got underway around the hotel’s pool, apologetic hotel staff and security guards began telling group members to remove their literature and banners, to get out of the pool and hot tub, and to stop handing out T-shirts, according to Ryan and court documents.
The employees were acting on the orders of hotel owner Tehmina Adaya, according to the statements of witnesses and hotel employees in court documents. Adaya is a Muslim woman of Pakistani descent.
In court documents, Adaya said the July event had not been scheduled with the hotel and that the participants were trespassing on hotel property. Philip E. Black, an attorney for Adaya, declined to comment.
A jury trial is slated to begin Monday in Santa Monica Superior Court. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $1 million in damages.
According to the lawsuit, the charitable event was for the Legacy Program, a branch of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces that raises funds to send children of fallen Israeli soldiers to summer camp. The party was planned by Platinum Events, a marketing firm that had organized other gatherings at the Shangri-La after the property underwent a $30-million renovation and reopened in mid-2009, the complaint said.
For more: Â http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-shangri-la-lawsuit-20120723,0,868164.story
