Five days after the arrest of seven members of the group Food Not Bombs for feeding the homeless in Gaslight Park without a permit, the Tampa City Council agreed Thursday to hold a workshop to discuss the possibility of amending its current ordinance on the issue.
“What if we create Sunday as the one day where they can come in – and not just Food Not Bombs (but) a church or another non profit – to set up some tables, feed some homeless people, and not have to worry about being trespassed or arrested and can truly do so? asked Councilman Guido Maniscalco in proposing the workshop, which his fellow council members voted unanimously to support.
Food Not Bombs members were found last Saturday to be in violation of City Ordinance 16.43, which states that, “No person shall conduct any activity or utilize any department managed land in a manner which will result in commercial activity, as defined in this chapter, or provide for the distribution or sampling of any materials, merchandise, food, and/or beverages to the general public, without prior written approval from the department.”
But other cities, like St. Petersburg, do allow small-scale food distribution without a permit. Maniscalco is calling for a workshop so that the city’s legal department can research St. Pete’s code and offer their own suggestions on how to possibly accommodate the public feedings. He said he also wants other council members to weigh in as well with their own ideas.
After hearing a steady stream of citizens criticizing the city for “criminalizing the homeless,” Councilman Harry Cohen felt the need to tell the audience at Thursday’s council meeting that “we’re all compassionate people up here, and we want to find a way to express that compassion in the types of rules and laws that we pass in the city.”
Two of the seven members of Food Not Bombs that we’re arrested last weekend told the council that the city’s current ordinance is a form of government overreach, and should be considered an embarrassment.
“The idea that city government has the authority to prevent us from caring for each other is absurd,” said Jimmy Dunson. “We are going to bring about a better world, we are going to make this city bold, we are turning on our porch lights and calling the homeless back home. We just ask that the city doesn’t ask its police force to stand in the way of that.”
“This is like the Wizard of Oz, where rather than permits, fees and handcuffs, the city needs some a heart, a brain and some courage,” added FNB member Dezeray Lynn. “It’s time for the city and TPD stop pretending that two small tables in a public park where our taxes already pay for the public use of that park is what is making this into a problem.”
Tampa is certainly not the only city around the country that has ordinances on the books that restrict the practice of public feedings in city parks. Two years ago, Food Not Bombs sued the city of Fort Lauderdale after it passed a similar law as Tampa’s ordinance. The group claimed the city law would “have a chilling effect on plaintiffs’ exercise of free speech and association,” but a U.S. District Judge ruled in favor of Fort Lauderdale last fall.
Nevertheless, several speakers at Thursday’s meeting told Council members how the arrests were a blot on the image of Tampa.
“I have actually been rather astonished and dismayed with the way that the city of Tampa deals with its homeless population,” said Aaron Walker, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Tampa, referring back to the issue the council and Mayor Bob Buckhorn had in dealing with panhandlers several years ago. He said he wasn’t in Tampa last week when the arrests occurred, but “it seems to that the optics of this particular problem are not in our favor, something we need to deeply consider.”
City Attorney Sal Territo said that the media attention from the arrests, which took place as thousands of people descended into Tampa for Monday night’s national college football championship, was an unfair depiction of the city’s attitude towards the homeless. He called it “an unfortunate situation.”
“It wasn’t because they were feeding people in the park,” he told the Council. “They were there without a permit, and the parks are supposed to be available to everyone. And this park does not have facilities for people who were eating in the park. So it really wasn’t the mean spirited way it was being portrayed.”
Tampa resident Susan Simpson said she was a supporter of Tampa Food Not Bombs. She said as a Christian and and as an employee of a church, her motto is to love God first, “and love thy neighbor as well.”
Speaking to SPB after the meeting, Maniscalco himself invoked his Christian background as to why he wants to find a way to move forward on the issue.
“I go to church every Sunday,” Maniscalco said. “I call myself a Christian. Yet we criminalize the essence of what we’re taught in church, which is to help your fellow man. So I feel like a hypocrite as a compassionate human being.”
Mayor Buckhorn was quoted in Thursday’s Tampa Bay Times as saying he is open to compromise with FNB, but added, “You can’t destroy a neighborhood in order to make your conscious feel better, and that’s exactly what’s happening.”
The workshop is scheduled to take place on Thursday, February 23 at 9:00 a.m.
