Political Food Fight

By Oliver Lukacs

Sept. 24 -- Using food to wage a fight against the City, hundreds of homeless and the people who feed them staged a food line on the fog-swept lawn of City Hall Tuesday evening to protest an ordinance they fear could ban free meal programs in City parks.

Reporters and camera crews from the major networks milled around the circus-like atmosphere capturing images of homeless people -- some playing guitars and violins -- who were drawn out by the promise of food and the threat posed by the ordinance the City Council would take up that night.

The proposed measure would make the meal programs a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum $1,000 fine and six months in jail by enforcing strict health code standards that the City is betting the providers can't meet.

"This is a totally peaceful demonstration, just taking care of humans, you know," said Ron Carter, a homeless volunteer from Venice.

Carter was standing alongside members of the National Lawyers Guild distributing rice, beef, vegetables, punch and fruit to more than 150 homeless crowding the lawn.

If the ordinance passes, said former City Attorney Robert Myers, the National Lawyers Guild "will fight it in the courts and it will fight it in the streets."

Myers, who was fired for refusing to author a similar ordinance a decade ago this month, said that aside from representing people who might be prosecuted under the ordinance, the guild will "continue to feed even if it is in violation of the ordinance."

Sitting on the lawn among the homeless was James Smith, wearing a brown stained jacked and sporting a dirty beard. Smith said he has been homeless in Santa Monica for more than two years and has been waiting to get into a shelter for three months.

The ordinance is "mostly to run all these guys out of town," Smith said, pointing to the crowd. "Without the food, I'd have to leave. Some people come here from other places to get a meal because they know it's here every day consistently."

"Hippie," a homeless 25-year-old sporting a mohawk who has been in Santa Monica for 14 years, said the "City Council don't know what they're doing.

"I'm going to have to bug more people and harass them to get more money to eat," he said.

Some homeless lamented that if the health codes are enforced the menu would have to change because food would have to be kept at a certain temperature.

"It just means more sack lunches," said Boston, who was munching on steamed vegetables, rice and beef.

James Lafferty, executive director of the Los Angeles Chapter of the lawyers guild, said the health code would require that meal providers "have sinks, toilets, running water and that's not these people," he added, noting that the laws are meant for businesses.

"We try our best to adhere to the health code the best we can, but we have to be realistic," said Paul Grymkoysky, a member of Help Other People Eat (HOPE), one of the food distribution programs that has been handing out free meals in Palisades Park for ten years.

A homeless woman, who identified herself as "Viper," stood bracing a beat-up walker and defiantly wearing witches hat. "I'm going to push and push and push till the ignorant people get it."

"Viper" also would be affected by another proposed ordinance taken up by the council Tuesday night that would ban sleeping in the doorways of Downtown storefronts between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. If the ordinance passes, "Viper" said, she has no place to go to sleep.

"I don't want it to pass," she said. "I think it's wrong. It's immoral."

John Tyler, from Agape Church, who was handing out anti biotic pills to the homeless, also said he opposes both ordinances.