Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren has said his office won't pursue charges stemming from the Jan. 7 arrests of seven activists with the group on the grounds that they were violating a city ordinance and were thus trespassing, charges the Tampa Police Department filed directly with Warren's office last week.
"My mission is to make our community safer while promoting justice and fairness for everyone. Prosecuting people for charitable work does not further that mission and is an inefficient use of government resources," Warren said in a written statement, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Warren was elected in November, and surprised many when he beat popular incumbent Mark Ober, who was known for taking a hard line on even nonviolent offenders.
Warren has promised to do the opposite, and Tuesday's announcement that he won't prosecute the activists for helping the needy.
The activists have shared food with the homeless community in Lykes Gaslight Park in downtown Tampa for years despite the ordinance, but only had trouble with police in early January, which some attribute to the college football championships coming to town and the city perhaps not wanting its homeless on display in a centrally located park as sports fans traversed downtown.
The next step for supporters of Food Not Bombs' mission is to find a way around the ordinance so that the volunteers won't be potentially breaking the law when they feed (which they will do regardless of whether it's legal as long as there are people in the community who need a meal—they'd rather practice civil disobedience and risk arrest than let someone go without food).
Tampa City Councilman Guido Maniscalco said he has directed the City Attorney to look at ways to ensure Food Not Bombs' work will not be in violation of any city laws "so people like Food Not Bombs are going to have peace of mind, and know they're not going to get trespassed."
For Maniscalco, the arrests—and the PR nightmare they caused the city—should not have happened.
"The right thing to do, as a good human being, is to find a way to fix this,” he said in a phone interview. “They're just handing out food. Nobody's getting hurt here.”
He said the city could learn something from St. Petersburg, which found a way for Food Not Bombs and other groups to share food with members of the homeless community.
For years, St. Pete has allowed volunteers to do so every day in downtown's Williams Park, including Food Not Bombs, and there have been no problems.
“We haven't really had an issue,” said Cliff Smith, manager of Veterans, Social and Homeless Services for the City of St. Petersburg. “Truthfully, we welcome them. They're doing a service.”
On Feb. 23, the Tampa City Council will have a workshop on possible changes that would clear the way to Food Not Bombs to feed the homeless in Lykes Gaslight Park without worry about potential legal trouble.
This article appears in Jan 12-19, 2017.