 Orlando Food Not Bombs shares food and literature |  Venice Food Not Bombs volunteer arrested while filming Food Not Bombs on the Venice Boardwalk |
New Mexico is ranked as "America's
Hungriest State" by the U.S. Department of Agriculture with near 17
percent of our people going without food each month. New Mexico is not
the only state trying to stop Food Not Bombs. State officials in Arizona
and Connecticut. Flagstaff Food Not Bombs was told they could continue
if they "didn't publicize" our meal. The city has been
telling Flagstaff Food Not Bombs to move, stop and threatening arrest
for several months. Middletown Food Not Bombs has been trying to work
with the city but local officials started ticketing and arresting
volunteers in late April. Both the States of New Mexico and Connecticut
ordered all chapters to stop in letter they sent to the Food Not Bombs
office in Taos, New Mexico. Sharing free meals and literature in an
unregulated activity like all other offers of help. Food Not Bombs has
been sharing free vegetarian meals since 1980 and is providing free
meals and literature in over 1,000 cities around the world this weekend.
Not one person has reported being made ill by eating our vegetarian
meals. As would be expected the food is shared in the three hour period
determined safe by all state laws. Several cities have tried to stop
Food Not Bombs. San Francisco spend ten years and thousands of dollars
arresting and beating volunteers. The group still shares meals nearly
every day in San Francisco, California. Orlando Food Not Bombs was
arrested but found innocent and the city was ordered to pay $200,000 to
our lawyers. The city of west Palm Beach was ordered to pay our lawyers
$100,000 after trying to restrict our efforts. So far the United States
is the only country that has tried to stop Food Not Bombs from sharing
meals with the hungry. Police did arrest the Utrecht Netherlands
chapter but gave a formal apology. Our collective in Taos, New Mexico
will start to cook in an hour and we plan to share our meal as we have
been doing the past few years at 2:00 at the Taos Plaza. We are urging a
global day of action is solidarity of all groups under threat by
government officials. If you live near any chapter facing repression
please attend their next meal and consider risking arrest. Defense of
our right to share meals without government interference could not be a
more important right to protect as the global economy fails and millions
are going hungry.
Permits can be a big problem as we saw in
San Francisco where the city deleted the permit process as a way of
justifying their arrests after the government was pressured by corporate
leaders to drive us from public. We divided our meals into thirds in
San Francisco so that the police would steal the first amount and arrest
the servers then return to take another share of our meal and a few more
volunteers but after that they never took our third attempt and that way
everyone was fed. We felt that if we gave in this would give future
governments the idea that they could require permits and that when ever
a government thought they needed to restrict our work they could point
to the permits as justification.
Food permit laws are designed
to regulate the distribution of meals where there is an economic
incentive to cut corners in the preparation or serving of meals. Food
Not Bombs is an all volunteer project sharing free vegetarian meals and
literature in protest to war and poverty. Efforts to stop Food Not Bombs
is based on political considerations and has nothing to do with food
safety as no one has ever reported being made ill in the nearly thirty
years we have provided meals to the hungry.
