City Outlaws Feeding Large Groups in Parks : Homeless: New ordinance requires a permit for gatherings of 35 or more, with fines starting at $100. Councilman says action was not aimed at denying food to hungry people.

Despite predictions that they would be inciting the homeless to riot, the Santa Monica City Council on Tuesday enacted a law that in effect will banish homeless meal programs from the city’s parks and public places.

The law requires a permit for a gathering of 35 or more people, with a limit of two permits a month for any one group. Violators will face escalating fines starting at $100. It applies equally to all large gatherings, from the Girl Scouts to those who distribute food to the needy.

The same law, first proposed in September, precipitated the firing of homeless champion Robert M. Myers as city attorney. Myers refused to write the ordinance, telling several council members he would not participate in any scheme that would discourage the homeless from coming to Santa Monica.

Myers did not appear at the hearing, but in a telephone interview he said he continues to believe the law is unconstitutional and a violation of human rights.

But an outside attorney, who wrote the ordinance, assured the council that it was a neutral regulatory scheme that would pass constitutional muster.

Self-described members of Santa Monica’s large homeless contingent, and those who provide meals for them, were at the hearing. A majority of the 31 speakers complained long and loud to the council about the law. Some were belligerent. Some were beseeching. Some were befuddled.

Several vowed retribution if hungry, desperate people were subjected to what one flyer called a “starvation law” aimed at “cleansing” the parks.

“The poor will eat in the parks if they choose,” said Leonard Kuras. “The poor will eat in the street if they choose ... By the end of the century they will more than likely be eating in your kitchen .... Perhaps the future riots in Santa Monica will teach you a lesson.”

The law, which goes into effect in 45 days, was passed unanimously and without the liberal council majority’s usually apparent angst over any regulation that could be construed as hampering efforts to serve the needy.

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Noting Santa Monica’s proven commitment to serving the homeless, Councilman Paul Rosenstein said the ordinance was not aimed at denying food to hungry people. “We’re trying to direct how people are fed, not outlawing feeding,” Rosenstein said.

Council members have said the regulations were necessary to keep the parks from being monopolized by large groups. In addition, the city is about to embark on a $2-million improvement project in Palisades and Lincoln parks, both of which are popular with the homeless.

Breaking up large outdoor meal programs and moving them indoors is a key part of the report from the city’s Task Force on Homelessness, which was adopted by the City Council more than a year ago. Social service providers endorsed the idea that a sit-down meal not only offered dignity to the homeless, but brought them in touch with other services that could result in long-term solutions.

Accordingly, the city’s trademark City Hall lawn dinner distribution system was canceled in June in favor of three smaller programs at the Salvation Army, The Ocean Park Community Center and Step Up on Second, a day center for the mentally ill.

The programs are sponsored by FAITH (Family Assistance Involving the Homeless), the same group that served meals on the City Hall lawn. The city kicked in $35,000 for the added expense of having the meals indoors.

In addition to the three officially sanctioned food programs, a cottage industry in food distribution has evolved in Santa Monica’s parks.

In a letter to the council, FAITH President Stewart Jaffe endorsed the new ordinance, saying the ad hoc programs interfered with the organization’s efforts to obtain food.

“You’re not doing anyone a service by just handing out free food,” said Susan Dempsay of Step Up on Second. “That’s the easiest way out (for some of the homeless). They don’t have to answer to anyone and they can drink all day and night.”

Santa Monica Homeless Coordinator Wendy Bines said the three sanctioned programs are working well, feeding about 300 people a day during the week. Sack lunches are also available at several agencies.

On Saturday, food is available at two locations. A gap on Sunday will be filled by the time the ordinance goes into effect, said Julie Rusk, acting manager of Community and Neighborhood Services for the city.

A statement to the council by Rusk that hungry people are not turned away by the programs brought catcalls from the audience, many of whom insist they are denied food.

One homeless man, Jamie McAuley, explained outside the hearing that the array of unofficial programs provided options on days when he might be unable to arrive at the sanctioned programs on time. For example, McAuley said, he might be delayed while waiting in line for a health clinic appointment.

Bines said there are about 10 known groups that feed the homeless in Lincoln and Palisades parks, although not every day. They range from a church group from West Covina to an individual and his roommates passing out sandwiches.

Myers and the attorneys who used to work for him serve food at City Hall on Saturday. As originally written, the new law would have exempted his program because it is not in a park, but the council closed that loophole by expanding the definition to apply to all public spaces.

One group, which has no name, has been providing breakfast for 75 to 150 people in Lincoln Park two days a week for years. A participant, Michael Brennan, said the council had a choice between “confrontation and conciliation ... The people who are feeding the poor are quite committed to it.”

Another speaker from a local church group, Sylvia Baker, said she had the right to give away food in the park because she worked for the money to buy it.

The largest organized effort to feed people in the park is called HOPE (Help Other People Eat), which provides dinner on Wednesdays and Thursdays in Palisades Park, feeding about 300 people a week on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. HOPE is a splinter group, formed when the charity that ran the City Hall lawn program agreed to go along with the idea of breaking up the program and moving it inside to three locations.

A tearful member of the splinter group, Moira La Mountain of Venice, said she broke away from the original group because she was not satisfied with the city’s commitment to the indoor meals programs.

She vowed to sue if the council tried to prevent her group from distributing food in the park. “We will see this council and challenge you in court,” La Mountain said.