The city of Tucson has suspended an ordinance requiring permits to distribute food and beverages to people in public parks.
Ordinance 21-4b required anyone providing food to 10 or more people to apply for a free Food and Beverage Distribution Permit from the Parks and Recreation department and a certification from the Pima County Health Department. Aid groups argue the requirements discourage providing services to unhoused people where the city falls short.
Although groups have reported frustration with uneven enforcement of the rule in the past, Liz Casey, organizer with Community Care Tucson, said things escalated this summer when the city informed them of upcoming plans to close Armory Park for a year due to Proposition 407 and reminded them of the permit policy.
Casey said her group did not want to meet with city officials in-person, but asked multiple times for a list of alternative approved spots.
“We will take it to the group, and we will decide as a group, where is the best location for us to be after the closure of Armory,” she said.
She says their Wednesday night meals at Armory Park consistently serve at least 150 people, and their short term solution after fencing went up in early September was to move food distribution to the surrounding sidewalk.
“This is not a group that we can mass text and say, ‘Hey, we're changing locations,’” she said.
At their first event after the city closed Armory Park, a city employee and a police officer told the group they would be cited next time.
When the city continued to ask for permits and an in-person meeting, the group consulted with the ACLU, who argued that mutual aid is freedom of speech and protected by the first amendment, according to the legal document obtained by AZPM sent to both the city and the Pima County Attorney’s Office.
City Manager Timothy Thomure wrote in a Sept. 26 memo that suspending the permit program “will create a more collaborative environment for all.”
“We can and should avoid unnecessary conflict between Mutual Aid Groups seeking to provide food and water to our most vulnerable people and the project teams seeking to make these park improvements for all Tucsonans,” he wrote.
Casey called the suspension a win, but said Community Care Tucson has led an effort to rescind the ordinance for years and hopes it can still be fully eliminated.
“I think the city should just fully support what mutual aid groups are doing, especially because they have admittedly said that they do not have enough services for the thousands of unhoused folks who are currently in the community,” she said.
In the spring, the city council re-examined a specific provision of the ordinance that said parks within a half a mile of another location that served communal meals were ineligible for permits. They held several virtual listening sessions, and council members acknowledged many groups disregard the permitting system entirely. Before that, group members also wrote [hundreds of postcards[(https://www.azpm.org/s/98658-despite-growing-gaps-in-homeless-services-community-assistance-groups-feel-unsupported/) to the city council, urging them to reconsider it.
Thomure’s memo said the permitting system has not done what it was designed to do, which was to spread out food availability throughout the city.
“This has created an imbalance in the geographic coverage of permits and an inconsistency in enforcement,” he wrote.
According to the memo, groups are still required to get a Health Department food permit.
But Casey said the Pima County Attorney’s Office, in response to their letter from the ACLU, said they are allowed to continue operating without one, as long as they clearly disclose the food was not prepared in a commercial kitchen.
For now, Casey said they have not seen any further action from the city or police, and meals will continue on Wednesdays at Armory Park.
