City Doesn't Want to Enforce Its Stupid, Pointless Laws

After months of insisting on the "rule of law" needing to be enforced, the City had written itself into a Dickensian corner this week. By voting on appealing  the ruling that created the injunction against the sharing ban at last week's Commission meeting, the City was essentially asking the court to re-instate the sharing ban during the very height of the "charitable" holiday season. So at the latest hearing for Chef Arnold's lawsuit against the City, their attorneys made one huge conciliatory step back and proposed a further 45 day amnesty for sharing food in Fort Lauderdale.

While Mayor Magic Jack's heart has probably not grown noticeably, his ability to understand the nuance of selective enforcement seems to have developed somewhat.

It may seem like a common sense public relations move on behalf of the City, but it's also one of the biggest concessions they've made when it comes to the implementation of their anti-homeless laws. Originally proposed in late January 2013, they hit very few snags or delays all year long for most of these ordinances. But now the sharing ban will still be un-enforceable over a year after it was originally pitched.

It also begs the further, obvious question, which is that if the sharing ban is too crass and odious to enforce through Christmas-time, how is the rest of the year any different? It certainly won't be any less fair, nor are homeless people somehow less needy the other 11 months of the year.

Protests against sharing ban continue 12.20.14

Perhaps even more glaring is the farcical way in which the City insists they can reach a compromise on this issue...with Arnold Abbott. Not the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, nor any of the dozens of other people who are sharing food with the homeless downtown with little regard for City ordinances, or, most of all, the homeless people who need this aid in the first place.

It really goes to show how apathetic, disengaged, and facile the City is that, after all these months, they continue to act like this entire dispute involves one person alone. More than anything it proves that this law is doomed to failure.

More court updates and info about sharings downtown during Christmas coming up next.