Daytona church fighting City Hall to reopen food pantry gets help from powerhouse law firm

DAYTONA BEACH — A Texas nonprofit and a multinational law firm based in Chicago have joined forces with a Daytona Beach church to help it get its food pantry reopened .

In October last year, the city ordered Seventh Day Baptist Church of Daytona Beach to close the pantry, reportedly in response to complaints from a family that lives nearby, and the church filed a lawsuit.

First Liberty Institute and the law firm Sidley Austin LLP filed a motion in federal court for a preliminary injunction urging the court to stop the city from blocking the church from distributing food to those in need .

"It's unconscionable that the Daytona Beach city officials targeted Seventh Baptist Church's 16-year mission of providing food for the hungry," said Ryan Gardner, counsel at 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 injury involves a violation of the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury."

First Liberty Institute, which is based in the north Texas city of Plano, only takes on religious liberty cases. The nonprofit Christian conservative legal organization works with a large network of law firms.

Food pantry shutdown becomes lawsuit

The church and pantry are located just around the corner from City Hall.

Longtime local attorney Chobee Ebbets, whose law office is next to the Baptist church, has been representing Seventh Day Baptist pro bono on the action seeking a declaratory judgment and an injunction. The church is not currently seeking damages.

First Christian Church, located on Palmetto Avenue next door to City Hall, also had its food pantry shut down by the city last fall. But it was quickly allowed to reopen, leaving Seventh Day Baptist Church to wonder if it's being singled out for selective enforcement, and why.

Ebbets said in his lawsuit that public records he received from the city indicated "the churches were targeted as a result of complaints from one family located near the two churches."

Ebbets has said he didn't see the Seventh Day Baptist food pantry causing problems. He maintains in the lawsuit that the city's code prohibiting food pantries in redevelopment areas is "overbroad, arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory, and selective," and was used against 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 bordered to the west by railroad tracks and to the east by the Halifax River.

The city's four other redevelopment areas are in the Midtown neighborhood, around Ballough Road, and on the beachside between Oakridge Boulevard and Bostwick Avenue.

For more than 10 years, city code has prohibited food pantries at a place of worship in any of Daytona's five redevelopment areas.

Read more: Seventh Day Baptist Church of Daytona Beach sues city to get food pantry reopened

The city does make an exception for food pantries that were legally established as an accessory use prior to July 20, 2011. In August 2011, city commissioners passed an ordinance that prohibits new food pantries in all redevelopment areas.

First Christian Church was allowed to reopen in November after city officials located a form that indicated that the Palmetto Avenue church was legally grandfathered in after the 2011 measure was passed. City officials said they couldn't locate any such form for Seventh Day Baptist Church.

The lawsuit states that the city also couldn't find any documents indicating that Seventh Day Baptist Church had ever been notified of the need to get registered and officially grandfathered in to be exempt from the 2011 food pantry ordinance. There doesn't appear to have been any public notice, either, the suit states, concluding Seventh Baptist was denied due process.

City officials have said they banned food pantries in redevelopment areas because their presence can be detrimental to the difficult task of reviving a struggling area. Daytona Beach does allow food pantries as an accessory use to places of worship that are not located within a redevelopment area.

You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona church fighting City Hall to reopen food pantry gets help from powerhouse law firm