Council Orders Closing of Soup Kitchen
The City Council late Tuesday night ordered the operators of a soup kitchen to “cease and desist.”
Marc Ely-Chaitlin and the Mildred-Rose Memorial Foundation opened the soup kitchen on Olinda Drive in Lantern Village just a week ago. Ely-Chaitlin’s plan was to feed the poor living amid the affluence of Dana Point Harbor and the coast, he said.
Ely-Chaitlin, who lives in Capistrano Beach and was homeless for a year, said he purposely did not tell the city about his all-volunteer operation.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be open now,” he said. “That’s the flat-out truth. (The council) knows it and I know it. For a lot of people, it was a surprise.”
The surprise helped trigger an uproar among the neighborhood and the City Council. At City Hall, phone calls began pouring in from residents, said John Donlevy, assistant to City Manager William O. Talley.
“Some people called wanting to know the phone number or wanting to donate a refrigerator or something,” Donlevy said. “For others, it absolutely freaked them out.
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