Anti-poverty activists and civil rights advocates filed a lawsuit against the city of Las Vegas this week challenging an ordinance that makes it illegal to feed homeless people in public. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada filed the suit Wednesday on behalf of activists with Food Not Bombs, a grassroots anti-poverty group that provides free, vegetarian meals in hundreds of city parks across the country. Plaintiffs claim the new law, passed July 19 , violates constitutional rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, free assembly, due process of law and equal protection under the law. Las Vegas joins a growing number of cities passing laws and ordinances that target the homeless and their advocates. City councilors in Orlando, Florida also recently voted 5-2 in favor of a measure making it illegal to feed homeless people in public parks and other downtown areas. The Orlando ordinance bans dispensing food to large groups within a two-mile radius of City Hall without a permit, and limits permits to “two per user per park in a 12 month period.” The ordinance states that feeding groups in public parks creates “hazards to the health and welfare of citizens, birds and animals, and is detrimental to the aesthetic atmosphere of parks.” As previously reported by The NewStandard, a growing number of cities are passing laws and ordinances intended to push homeless people out of public places. In addition to anti-panhandling, anti-camping and anti-loitering ordinances, feeding programs in public parks are the latest targets. Homeless-rights advocate Michael Stoops described this trend as “a big battle in downtown American between the interests of low-income people and the interests of the business community.”
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