Updated: July 12, 2006

We have been able to obtain the complete text of the City of Orlando's newly revised "large group sharings" ordinance. Among the significant changes to the ordinance since it was voted on at first reading by the City Council on June 19:

The revised ordinance retains the section that states that "Not more than two (2) [one-time] Large Group Feeding Permits shall be issued to the same person, group, or organization ... for the same park in the GDPD in a twelve (12) consecutive month period."

Orlando Food Not Bombs remains as unalterably opposed to every provision of the revised ordinance as we were to the previous ordinance.

We, as members of the public, should not have to ask permission to peaceably use what supposedly are public parks for the purpose of sharing food with other members of the public. This enfringes on rights of free association, public assembly and free speech.

We should not have to pay an application fee to get a permit to share food in public parks. We are concerned that the application fee will be cost-prohibitive for most, if not all, of the groups that may wish to share food and is designed to make it impossible for these groups to continue to do what many of them have been doing for years. The city is wrong to require groups that share food to use their scarce financial resources for application fees when those funds could better be spent on food and the other needs of the hungry and homeless people whom these groups seek to help.

Limiting groups to two one-time permits per twelve-month period is designed to hinder groups from conducting regular sharings in the areas where homeless people typically can be found. Groups could move their sharings to parks outside of the GDPD, but this would be impractical since many of the people with whom these groups share do not, given their poverty, have the means to travel outside of the downtown area; furthermore, it seems evident that given the city's track record on this issue that if parks outside the GDPD became popular with the homeless and with groups that share food that the city eventually would enact another ordinance prohibiting "large group feedings" in those parks. Even without an additional ordinance, we are certain that the Orlando police and other governmental authorities eventually would begin harassing the homeless and groups sharing with them in any parks outside the GDPD where food sharing became common.

Orlando Food Not Bombs is opposed to conducting its sharings in a park outside the GDPD because to do so would be to legitimate the system of economic apartheid that the City of Orlando is trying to create in which citizens' use of public facilities is limited based upon their socio-economic status. This is discriminatory and classist, and is an example of the effects of the poverty, inequality and State power that Orlando Food Not Bombs exists to fight.

Groups that may not have the uncompromising stance of Orlando Food Not Bombs would be unwise to trust the City when it claims (in the text of the revised ordinance) that it is "committed to and has provided for and set aside reasonable, ample, alternative land space within the GDPD for large group feeding of the homeless by religious and other organizations which land is not covered by or affected by the restrictions of this ordinance." The ordinance does not specify the location of this "reasonable, ample, alternative land space," nor does it specify how long this area will be available for the use of groups. It also does not promise that this area will be provided with the amenities such as tables, chairs and bathrooms that can be found at parks such as Lake Eola. Nothing in the ordinance precludes the City from taking away the alternative feeding location when it wishes to do so.

We urge you to contact the Orlando Mayor and City Commissioners now to express your opposition to any ordinance that would a) stop Orlando Food Not Bombs and other groups from conducting regular sharings of food in any and all city parks and would b) impose any sort of regulations or restrictions on groups conducting food sharings, including requiring paid permits and stipulating how often they can share food.

Please show up at Mon., July 24 Orlando City Council meeting (held in the Council Chambers on the second floor) to show your support for the right of Orlando Food Not Bombs and other groups to continue sharing food with hungry, homeless people. Citizens are allowed to speak before the Council to express their opposition to this measure, and we urge you to do so. Orlando Food Not Bombs will hold a protest outside of Orlando City Hall, 400 S. Orange Ave., Orlando 32801, on Mon., July 24 between 1:30-2 p.m. Please join us in standing up for liberty, equality and compassion for the dispossessed.

Thank you for concern and support.
–Orlando Food Not Bombs


CITY OF ORLANDO SEEKS TO MAKE IT A CRIME TO SHARE FOOD WITH HUNGRY POOR AND HOMELESS PEOPLE IN DOWNTOWN ORLANDO

On Monday, June 19 the Orlando City Council had its first vote on a proposed ordinance (amending Chapter 18A [Parks and Outdoor Public Assemblies] of the code of the City of Orlando), that would effectively stop Orlando Food Not Bombs and other groups from sharing food at Lake Eola Park and other public spaces in Orlando. The measure was approved 5-2 , with Orlando City Commissioners Sam Ings and Robert Stuart voting "No." The ordinance will come up for a second vote at the Monday, July 24 Council meeting. If it is approved for a second time, as it is expected to be, the measure would go into effect immediately.

Orlando Food Not Bombs is one of hundreds of autonomous chapters of a 25-year-old international movement of people who gather up food that would otherwise go to waste, turn it into hot, nutritious vegetarian and vegan meals, and share it with hungry people in public spaces. The ordinance, which is the brainchild of Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (at right), would define "large group feedings" as being 15 or more people (Orlando Food Not Bombs typically shares with 50-75 people), and would require groups that wish to share free food with people in public parks to pay for a permit from the city's Parks Bureau. The ordinance, however, stipulates that a group would only be allowed two one-time permits in any twelve-month period, which would effectively stop Orlando Food Not Bombs from sharing at the location it has used for more than a year, since the group shares every week (Wednesdays, 5 p.m.) year-round. Orlando Food Not Bombs is not the only local group that shares food downtown; it is, however, one of the most visible groups sharing at Lake Eola Park, and while Orlando Food Not Bombs is not mentioned by name in the ordinance, it's clear that it was written particularly to target our group for the "crime" of sharing food and for challenging power, privilege and poverty in the heart of the Lake Eola area. This, we feel, may have been done at the urging of Robin Stotter and George Miguel , who will soon open a restaurant across from the area where Orlando Food Not Bombs holds its sharings.

Downtown developers, business interests such as Stotter and Miguel, the police, Commissioner Sheehan and her aide, Chase Smith, have seen fit to scapegoat Orlando Food Not Bombs and other groups for "attracting" homeless people to the Thornton park area, which they claim is the cause of certain problems. (Although not all of the people with whom we share are homeless; some are people just having a hard time making ends meet on low-wage jobs; and even many of the homeless work jobs obtained through day labor pools; unfortunately, those jobs don't pay them enough to be able to get off the streets). Whatever crime problems in downtown Orlando may be attributable to the homeless, it's important to remember that only a minority of the thousands of homeless in the downtown area commit crime and that there already exist plenty of laws to deal with any crimes they may commit. Stopping groups from sharing food in public parks is not an effective or humane solution to stopping crime downtown or making the downtown area more attractive.

The proponents of the ordinance don't seem to understand that even without sharings by Orlando Food Not Bombs and others, homeless people still will flock to downtown Orlando, including the rapidly gentrifying Lake Eola and Thornton Park neighborhoods–areas full of expensive condos, and trendy restaurants, bars and shops. Homeless people are just like anyone else, they like the pleasant surroundings of a lake and greenery along with comfortable benches on which to sit. One unspoken goal of the proposed ordinance, it appears, is to spare affluent middle-class and upper middle-class people from being discomforted by the sight of those far less fortunate than them. As the Orlando Weekly piquantly put it, the ordinance seeks to "help snooty, rich white folks who don't like having to see bums on their morning jog." These are the "young, vibrant, urban professionals" that restauranteur Robin Stotter told the Orlando Sentinel he hopes to attract. It's obvious that Commissioner Sheehan considers Stotter and his private profits more important than the needs of people. Sadly, Commissioner Sheehan also thinks that dogs and their owners deserve more consideration than hungry and homeless people. She was a strong proponent of the recently passed "Doggie Dining Bill," a state law that gives local communities the option of allowing people to have their dogs with them while they eat on the outdoor patios of restaurants.

The only concrete result of the proposed ordinance will be to deprive hungry, often homeless, people of food and to make their already difficult and miserable lives more difficult and more miserable. It is a heartless tool the city will use in a futile effort to discourage homeless people from coming downtown; it will join other misguided and unsuccessful measures, which have included harassment by the Orlando Police Department–particularly the bicycle unit, trespassing the homeless from city parks, and instituting "begging zones" (which replaced the begging licenses the city formerly issued). Try as it might, the city just can't make homeless people understand that they should get with the plan by going to some other community and becoming its "problem." The "large group feedings" ordinance will not do anything to address any of the crime, quality of life or aesthetic concerns that have been used to justify it. If anything the homeless may have to resort to petty crimes, such as shoplifting or theft, in order to obtain food or money for food, since the City wants to stop them from getting meals from Orlando Food Not Bombs and other groups. When people are hungry and desperate, legal and ethical considerations are not foremost in their minds.

No one in Orlando Food Not Bombs wishes to romanticize the homeless or to claim that they are all victims of an uncaring society or callous capitalism (although those factors along with just plain bad luck do indeed explain why a certain portion of people are homeless). Whatever the reasons that some of the people with whom we share may be homeless, we in Food Not Bombs firmly believe that Food Is A Right, Not A Privilege. We believe that no one should go hungry, especially not in a society such as ours which is characterized by obscene wealth (along with glaring disparities in how that wealth is distributed) and that wastes so much perfectly good, edible food (some of which Orlando Food Not Bombs reclaims) despite the fact that several million people in our country don't get enough to eat on a daily basis. We believe that everyone, whatever their station in life, is entitled to respect, dignity and compassion simply because they're human. Just because you're poor, homeless or having some difficulties in life that have made you less than affluent doesn't mean that you deserve to be shunted off to the side, treated like a second-class citizen by the authorities and made to feel unwelcome by a community.

Everyone, we believe, is entitled to use public amenities, such as city parks, including that segment of the public that some may view as undesirable because of their dismal economic circumstances. We in Orlando Food Not Bombs, are part of the public, and mostly residents of Orlando, and we believe that we have the right to use public parks to share food with other members of the public. We also reject as misleading and malicious any contentions that our doing so is any way interfering with the ability of anyone else to use the park (we are in one small corner of a park with a circumference of aproximately one mile and our sharings last less than two hours). Such claims form part of the broader pattern of city officials, downtown residents and business owners, who look down their noses at anyone who isn't affluent, making false claims in order to justify their snobbishness and lack of compassion and understanding. We reject the idea that we, as members of the public, should have to ask permission from bureaucrats and pay for the privilege of using a park, that by virtue of our being members of the public, already belongs to us.

If you agree with us and wish to support Orlando Food Not Bombs and other groups in their efforts to continue to be able to share food with people in downtown Orlando parks, please call, e-mail or fax the Mayor and City Commissioners or their aides to express your opposition to the ordinance that would amend Chapter 18A (Parks and Outdoor Public Assemblies) of the code of the City of Orlando. Also, feel free to show up at the July 24th City Council meeting which starts at 2 p.m. to speak in opposition to the ordinance. The Council meets in the Council Chambers on the second floor of Orlando City Hall, 400 S. Orange Ave., Orlando 32801.

Thankfully, we in Orlando Food Not Bombs are not alone in this fight. We have received an outpouring of support from within our community and from around the country. We are confident that, in the end, the idea that people are more important than profits will prevail. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to continue sharing food with hungry people and to fight war, poverty, the destruction of the Earth, and the other forms of inequality and oppression that make groups such as Orlando Food Not Bombs necessary. The Central Florida Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has even announced that as soon as the ordinance is passed that it will file a lawsuit on behalf of us, other groups and other individuals affected by the ordinance. Please check this website occasionally for updates on developments in this situation.

This is a form letter that you can use to contact the Orlando mayor and city commissioners to express your opposition to the ordinance that would stop Orlando Food Not Bombs and others from sharing food at Lake Eola and other city parks.

Dear Mayor Dyer or Commissioner ------- (fill in name),

On Monday, July 24 the Orlando City Council will vote on a proposed ordinance (amending Chapter 18A). The ordinance would require that groups that wish to share free food with people in public parks downtown pay for a permit from the city's parks bureau The ordinance, however, also stipulates that a group will only be allowed two one-time permits in any twelve-month period, which would effectively stop Orlando Food Not Bombs from sharing at the Lake Eola Park ocation it has used for more than a year, since the group shares every week (Wednesdays, 5 p.m.) year-round. Orlando Food Not Bombs is one of hundreds of autonomous chapters of a 25-year-old international movement of people who gather up food that would otherwise go to waste, turn it into hot, nutritious vegetarian and vegan meals, and share it with hungry people in public spaces.

Although Orlando Food Not Bombs is not the only local group that shares food downtown, it has recently gotten a lot of attention for its regular sharings at Lake Eola Park. The ordinance, however, also would stop several other religious and civic groups that regularly share food at Lake Eola and other city parks. Whether these groups are acting out of religiously-inspired compassion, simple charity or for other reasons, they should continue to have the right to use public parks in Orlando to share food with hungry people and those hungry people should not be discriminated against in their use of public parks because they happen to be poor and sometimes homeless. The people in these groups and the people with whom they share deserve the same level of consideration that the city gives to developers and business interests.

I feel that this ordinance is completely unnecessary and would like for you to vote against it on Monday, July 24.. The new ordinance will not be any more successful at keeping the homeless out of downtown Orlando, nor will the ordinance do anything to address any of the crime, quality of life or aesthetic concerns that have been mentioned to rationalize it. All it will do is deprive hungry people of food and make their lives more difficult.

Thank you for your time and consideration on this matter.

Sincerely,

Mayor Buddy Dyer
buddy.dyer@cityoforlando.net
Fax: 407-246-2842
Phone: 407-246-2221
Chief of Staff: Cheryl Henry
407-246-2221

Comissioner District 1: Phil Diamond
phil.diamond@cityoforlando.net
Phone: 407-246-2001
Fax: (407) 246-3010
Aide: Sandy Johnson
Phone: 407-246-3011

Comissioner District 2: Betty Wyman
bwyman@cityoforlando.net
Phone: 407-246-2002
Fax: (407) 246-3010
Aide: Dona Patrick
Phone: 407-246-2899

Comissioner District 3 : Robert Stuart
Robert.Stuart@cityoforlando.net
Phone: 407-246-2003
Fax: (407) 246-3010
Aide: Monica Mesa
Phone: 407-246-4059

Comissioner District 4: Patty Sheehan
Patty.Sheehan@cityoforlando.net
Phone: 407-246-2004
Fax: (407) 246-3010
Aide: Chase Smith
Phone: 407-246-2106

Comissioner District 5: Daisy Lynum
Daisy.Lynum@cityoforlando.net
Phone: 407-246-2005
Fax: (407) 246-3010
Aide: Marcia Davis
Phone: 407-246-3014

Commissioner District 6: Samuel Ings
Samuel.Ings@cityoforlando.net
Phone: 407-246-2006
Fax: (407) 246-3010
Aide: Cynthia Wilson
Phone: 407-246-3016