Party Pooper

PARTY POOPER… Squid drove Squid’s jalopy around to a few Car Week parties this year, but Squid was not invited to one McLaren party in Carmel Valley (perhaps due to the jalopy?). Turns out, according to a lawsuit filed on Nov. 3 in Monterey County Superior Court, that the County of Monterey was not invited either, but they did issue a citation to the property owners for throwing a party without any of the requisite permits.

Those property owners – Open AI executive Fidji Simo and chocolatier husband Remy Miralles – paid the citation, but now they are suing the party planners, McLaren International, Inc. and its agent BMF Media Group, for racking up quite the bill.

The internationally renowned supercar brand, associated with a world-champion Formula One team, signed a “Location Agreement and Event License” contract to use the $6.5 million mansion, promising to complete a list of tasks to host their event from Aug. 11 to Aug. 18. Among those contractual to-do’s: pay a location fee and security deposit totaling $225,000, obtain insurance for no less than $2 million, and ensure that all persons behave in a “gentle and courteous fashion,” the contract states.

(The contract also included a page advising CAUTION! in bold, underlined text, alerting guests of the hazards of the property – “many types of potentially hazardous plants and animals, including but not limited to: mountain lions; bobcats; deer, and poison oak.” Squid remains unclear on what hazards deer pose to partygoers if those partygoers are not a piece of grass.)

However, McLaren and BMF Media missed the mark on one important party-planning promise: county approval. According to court documents, despite their contractual agreement to obtain the proper permitting they failed to do so, prompting county officials to show up on Aug. 12 – in the middle of the event – to hand-deliver a citation for $505,359 to Rachel Newman and Dan Rosenthal of BMF Media.

But the party must go on – after all, there were six more days of Car Week festivities to be had. So, BMF Media allegedly assured the hosts that, while the county had swung by, no issues lingered.

One month later, the County of Monterey issued a revised citation, this time for $761,975 plus $900 in administrative costs – roughly $100,000 shy of how much it would cost to purchase a 2022 McLaren 765LT Spider. Simo and Miralles paid up, then sued the planners. A hearing is set for March 3; McLaren’s attorneys filed papers seeking to move an earlier version of the case to federal court.

Squid will be munching on shrimp-flavored popcorn as the lawyers fight out their First World Problems. Maybe someone will earn enough to buy a McLaren.