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San Clemente City Council members narrowly struck down a proposal that would have prevented residents from distributing food to strangers in public, including handing out food to homeless people.
The item failed in a 3-2 split on Tuesday night — with Councilmembers Rick Loeffler and Victor Cabral voting in support of the proposed regulations.
The change would have required residents to obtain a permit from the city before handing out any food or drink items to strangers on public property. To obtain a permit, applicants would have needed to demonstrate sanitary conditions, meet city insurance requirements and pay a fee, among other requirements.
Councilmember Mark Enmeier said the ordinance is “a bit of an overreach.”
“It’s going to cause us some trouble going down the line,” he said.
Critics said the changes would unfairly target religious groups in the city that meet at North Beach and give out food during Bible study and other gatherings. Speakers also emphasized this change would largely affect the city’s homeless population who often rely on strangers for food and drink.
“If I wish to share a sandwich or bottle of water with someone on the street who appears hungry or offer a cold drink to someone without shelter on a hot day, this ordinance would make my actions unlawful and subject to enforcement and financial penalties,” San Clemente resident Donna Vidrine said during the meeting’s public comment section.
“This is not only an infringement on personal freedoms, but also an affront to my values and faith,” she said.
Councilmember Zhen Wu said the ordinance could leave the city vulnerable to litigation by adding barriers for religious groups who feed homeless people.
Supporters of the ordinance voiced concerns regarding safety and littering, adding they’d prefer religious groups to feed homeless people on private property instead of public beaches.
Some speakers described instances where they were assaulted by a homeless person on the beach or had property stolen as reasoning to support the food distribution rules. They said giving out food encourages criminals and drug addicts to hang out on the beach more often.
But Leoffler and Cabral — the only two council members to support the changes — both said the proposed ordinance didn’t have anything to do with homelessness.
“If there are groups going to our parks and just handing out food to anybody that comes up, that doesn’t sound like a good idea,” Loeffler said. “So take the homeless part of it out of the equation.”
Cabral agreed and encouraged religious groups to serve homeless people in their private facilities.
“This has nothing to do with trying to attack the homeless,” he said. “I think the city has been pretty clear that we’re encouraging the churches to do more to serve the homeless community at their churches and at their facilities.”
Mayor Steve Knoblock said the city’s park rangers should be able to handle concerns regarding safety, security and trash.
“I think people that have in their minds and hearts a desire to help, I think we shouldn’t be hindering that at all,” Knoblock said.
Council members agreed that the food distribution ordinance wouldn’t be enough to solve the city’s homelessness problem and further steps need to be taken in the future to address this issue.
“I hope we can think of some other resources to address the crime in North Beach,” Loeffler said. “This probably isn’t one of them.”
Maura Mikulec, a social worker and advocate for homeless people, said she was thrilled the ordinance was rejected but will keep an eye on the council moving forward.
“Knowing the city’s history, and judging by past comments and actions of some of these councilmembers and the bigoted comments made in the meeting against people who are homeless, I don’t imagine the city is done coming up with punitive and overreaching ways to handle homelessness issues,” Mikulec said in an interview.
“I would love to see them do more to actually help people who are struggling — like aggressively work with the county to build permanent supportive housing like our neighbor San Juan has been doing.”
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
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