News Release
For Immediate Release: 8.29.24
Contact: John Manning, media@firstliberty.org
Direct: 972-941-4453
Florida Church Urges Court to Halt Daytona Beach from Blocking Food Distribution to Impoverished Families
City ordinance singles out churches operating food pantries in redevelopment areas, forcing the church to pay fines or stop feeding hungry.
Daytona Beach, FL—First Liberty Institute and the law firm Sidley Austin L.L.P. filed a motion for preliminary injunction in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida urging the court to stop the City of Daytona Beach from blocking the Seventh-Day Baptist Church of Daytona from distributing food to those in need.
You can read the motion here.
“It’s unconscionable that the Daytona Beach city officials targeted Seventh Baptist Church’s 16-year mission of providing food for the hungry, hurting people in the community,” 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.”
Since 2007, Seventh Baptist Church has operated its food pantry for the most vulnerable families in the community. For most of that time, the city, and its citizens, not only allowed the church’s food ministry to thrive, but they also supported it and encouraged it. Even after the church moved to its current location—within what the city calls a “redevelopment area,” just like its prior location—the city allowed the church to operate the Food Pantry without issue. The city only decided to target the church’s Food Pantry after a former City Commissioner and her spouse exerted political pressure, complaining that, among other things, “these types of feeding programs are plagues to the efforts to redevelop a neighborhood” and that “crowds of people [are] sleeping on church steps and in alleys beside homes.” The city has forced the church to decide between fidelity to what it believes the Christian faith requires—i.e., commitment to the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, and the hungry in service to Christ—or suffer a devasting $5,000 per day fine if it continues to operate a Food Pantry. The City took these aggressive actions despite allowing various other Food Pantries to continue operating in redevelopment areas.
The motion states, “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.” Roman Catholic Diocese, 592 U.S. at 67 (quoting Elrod, 427 U.S. at 373 (plurality opinion)); see also Opulent Life Church v. City of Holly Springs, 697 F.3d 279, at 295 (5th Cir. 2012) (“This principle applies with equal force to the violation of RLUIPA rights because RLUIPA enforces First Amendment freedoms[.]”). Since it was forced to close its food pantry in November 2023, the Church has been prohibited from carrying out its religious obligation of ministering to the hungry.”
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About First Liberty Institute
First Liberty Institute is a non-profit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.
To arrange an interview, contact John Manning at media@firstliberty.org or by calling 972-941-4453.
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