If Hollywood film crews can eat on the beach, why not the truly hungry, asks Arnold Abbott?
Before stepping in line to get a free meal last week (March 3), a tall beefy guy stopped to talk to the guy who has been inviting "150 of my closest friends" to dinner at Fort Lauderdale beach for nearly seven years and handed him a small set of keys.
Arnold Abbott looked at the tiny metal keys and laughed.
"Handcuff keys," explained Abbott, the founder and president of Love Thy Neighbor.
As it turned out, Abbott didn't need the keys or the bigger-than-average crowd of supporters who turned out last Wednesday (March 3) to help him serve heaping plates of spaghetti, turkey and bread and desserts to the homeless at South Beach Park.
At the last minute, city officials decided not to make good on threats to charge the 74-year-old with violating city codes for feeding the homeless in a city park.
"He keeps changing the rules on us," Assistant City manager Bud Bentley explained.
Hoping to beat the city at its own game, Abbott last Tuesday filed a suit asking a judge to stop city officials from shutting down his once-a-week oceanside feeding program. In the hand-written suit, Abbott and fellow homeless advocate Bob Semak charge that the park rule the city is using to force his group off the beach is "unconstitutional and blatantly discriminatory, depriving the homeless of their civil right since all others can eat on this public beach."
Since Broward County Judge Estella Moriarty is to hear the suit this Wednesday (March 10), before another feeding can be held, Bentley says city officials decided to delay action against Abbott.
"There was nothing magical about this Wednesday or next Wednesday," Bentley says.
If Moriarty sides with Abbott and rules that the law is unconstitutional, then the city won't bother him, Bentley says. If, however, the judge rules that the city is well within its rights to keep Abbott from feeding the homeless at its beachfront park and he continues to do so, he will be cited for violating the law, Bentley says.
"We're not going to arrest him," Bentley says.
As he has maintained for more than a year, Bentley says the regulation isn't anti-homeless. It doesn't matter that Abbott's feedings only happen once a week, last about an hour or that the homeless and Abbott's small band of volunteers make sure the park is clean before they leave.
"You can always minimize the problem by providing an example that makes a rule look ... not ridiculous, but not a bad thing," Bentley says. "But the rule applies whether you do it for five minutes once a week or every day for five hours. If Arnold can feed people at the beach, why can't others?"
That is Abbott's point. Others do.
Last week, in fact, the normally empty parking lot adjacent to the picnic area where the homeless gather to be fed was crammed with tents, trucks, and portable bathrooms. Chefs were searing steaks on open grills as another group of people waited to be fed.
The other group was those involved in filming Oliver Stone's latest movie, Any Given Sunday. Word that Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx and other celebrities were using the park to film the movie about troubled football star Lawrence Taylor attracted a small crowd of tourists, which added to the confusion and congestion.
Unlike Abbott and the roughly 50 homeless men and women who gathered at the beach, the movie-makers and their crews were welcomed by city leaders. They had a permit to be there, and city police and private security were on hand to help direct traffic and make sure the movie-makers' visit to the beach was a pleasant one.
The difference, city officials explain, is that the movie-makers' visit is a one-time deal. It's not, like Abbott's weekly feedings, an ongoing activity.
Still, the irony wasn't lost on those who gathered at the beach to catch a glimpse of the stars.
Alain LaFrance, a tourist from Montreal who was among the small crowd attracted by the movie-making was stunned when told of the city's threats against Abbott.
"I would give him money to feed the poor. I would give him $20," he said. He then reached into his wallet and did just that.
Frank Mattera, a tourist from Long Island, N.Y. was similarly touched by Abbott's story. While he didn't part with any cash, before wandering away, he stopped and shook Abbott's hand.
"I think there's needy people everywhere and we should all chip in," he says. "I think some of the people standing on line could probably get a job but as far as what he's doing, I think it's great."
Their views obviously aren't shared by city officials or tourism industry leaders who have long campaigned to get Abbott off the beach.
But it is equally obvious that Abbott isn't going to give up easily. A lawsuit filed, he is now poised to do whatever he cam to strike down the rule that he says hurts those who are struggling just to survive. The city's sentiments are as obvious as they are unfair, he says.
"If you're rich you can eat on the beach. If you're poor, you can't," he says. "These people have no place to go. We'll continue to feed them."