DAYTONA BEACH — A Texas nonprofit and a Chicago-based international law firm have teamed up with a Daytona Beach church to reopen its food pantry.
Last October, the city ordered the Seventh Day Baptist Church of Daytona Beach to close its food pantry, reportedly in response to complaints from a family living nearby. The church subsequently filed a lawsuit.
First Liberty Institute and law firm Sidley Austin LLP have filed a petition in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction, urging the court to enjoin the city from blocking the church from distributing food to the needy.
“It is unacceptable that Daytona Beach city officials attacked Seventh Baptist Church’s 16-year mission to feed the hungry,” said Ryan Gardner, an attorney with First Liberty Institute. “People who take action to care for the hungry should be encouraged and affirmed, not threatened and fined. The city is criminalizing compassion.”
The motion filed by Sidley Austin states that “there can be no doubt that the church has suffered irreparable harm because the harm constitutes a violation of the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The loss of First Amendment freedoms, even for minimal periods, undeniably constitutes irreparable harm.”
First Liberty Institute, based in the North Texas city of Plano, handles only religious liberty cases. The nonprofit Christian conservative legal organization works with a large network of law firms.
Food bank closure leads to lawsuit
The church and the pantry are located around the corner from the town hall.
Local attorney Chobee Ebbets, whose law office is next door to the Baptist church, is representing Seventh Day Baptists pro bono in the case seeking declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. The church is not currently seeking damages.
First Christian Church, located on Palmetto Avenue next to City Hall, also had its food pantry closed by the city last fall. But it was quickly allowed to reopen, leaving Seventh Day Baptist Church wondering whether it was being singled out for selective enforcement, and why.
Ebbets stated in his lawsuit that public documents he received from the city showed that “the churches had become the target of complaints from a family living near the two churches.”
Ebbets has said he did not see the Seventh Day Baptist food bank causing any problems. He alleges in the lawsuit that the city’s code prohibiting food banks in redevelopment areas is “overbroad, arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory and selective” and that it was used against the Seventh Day Baptist Church in a way that amounted to “an unlawful exercise of the city’s police powers.”
Caught in redevelopment area ban
Seventh Day Baptist Church is located in Daytona Beach’s Downtown Community Redevelopment Area, which extends from Fairview Avenue to South Street. The CRA is bounded by railroad tracks on the west and the Halifax River on the east.
The city’s four other redevelopment areas are in the Midtown neighborhood, around Ballough Road, and on the beachfront between Oakridge Boulevard and Bostwick Avenue.
For more than 10 years, the city has banned food banks at houses of worship in Daytona’s five redevelopment areas.
Read more: Daytona Beach Seventh Day Baptist Church sues city to reopen food bank
The city makes an exception for food banks legally established as an accessory use before July 20, 2011. In August 2011, city commissioners passed an ordinance banning new food banks in all redevelopment areas.
First Christian Church was allowed to reopen in November after city officials found a form showing the Palmetto Avenue church was legally exempt after the 2011 measure passed. City officials said they could not find such a form for Seventh Day Baptist Church.
The lawsuit states that the city also could not find any documents indicating that Seventh Day Baptist Church was ever notified of the need to register and be officially exempt from the 2011 food bank ordinance. There also appears to have been no public notice, the lawsuit says, concluding that Seventh Baptist was denied due process.
City officials have said they banned food banks in redevelopment areas because their presence could be detrimental to the difficult task of revitalizing a struggling area. Daytona Beach allows food banks as an accessory use for houses of worship that are not in a redevelopment area.
You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared in The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Multinational law firm and nonprofit helping Daytona Beach church
