legal advice? (Food Not Bombs)

[Gordon Fitch]

Gordon Fitch wrote:
> > I don't have any legal advice, but I do know this situation
> > arises occasionally with FNB activities, most famously in San
> > Francisco, where over 1000 people were arrested quite a few
> > years back.  Several months ago the police threatened to stop
> > an FNB operation in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but they got
> > some bad publicity and the FNB "chapter" consented to filled
> > out a pro-forma permit application.  In New York City a few
> > years ago, a non-FNB free food party was busted, but the cops
> > waited until all the food had been given out, and then gave
> > one person a ticket, on the basis of a law that makes it
> > illegal to serve hot food to the public without a license of
> > some kind.  The authorities of liberalism are conflicted about
> > such things: they _want_ to make them stop until properly
> > licensed and authorized (that is, incorporated into the State)
> > but the use of police force against the likes of FNB gives the
> > game away all too obviously.

Chuck Munson:
> Actually, the best tactic is non-cooperation with the police and the
> state. This methodology has always been what FNB is about. Anybody who
> starts a FNB chapter should know about all of the arrests that the San
> Francisco chapter has gone through over the years. If you cooperate with
> the state, then you aren't Food Not Bombs, you are just another liberal
> charity serving food to the homeless.

Actually, the degree to which one can get away with
cooperating with the State has been an item of debate since
FNB started.  Case histories can be found in various books
written by members of the movement, or whatever it is.  In
some times and places (San Francisco) the authorities have
explicitly attempted to shut FNB down; in others, they have
wanted only a pro-forma bureaucratic observation, and then
go away.  If they're not actually interfering with the work
(play), then it seems awfully reverent to regard their little
ceremonies as terribly significant.

-- Gordon