Four days a week, volunteers from Food Not Bombs, an international organization that feeds those experiencing homelessness, serve up meals at the corner of Smith and McKinney streets in downtown Houston near the public library. They've kept up this routine for 20 years, but in March something changed.
Police decided to start issuing citations to the group for "violating the city's Charitable Feeding Ordinance," an ordinance that has been on the books since 2012, but one which area volunteers say has never really been enforced. It requires both registered and non-registered food service operations to "obtain owner consent before using either public or private property for food service of more than five people."
