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Thursday, February 26, 2015

LAKE WORTH FLORIDA REQUIRES LICENSING OF CHURCHES~CODE ENFORCEMENT SAYS "THIS IS YOUR LAST SUNDAY"

Lake Worth, Florida; The Art of Florida Living 

CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND RELIGION DENIED WITHOUT A LICENSE 
FROM FLORIDA CITY

Florida City Spies On Churches, Demands Licenses

SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/florida-city-spies-churches-demands-licenses/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Editor’s Note: The government is increasingly persecuting even lukewarm and 501c(3) state churches.
The City of Lake Worth, in Palm Beach County, has taken the position all churches are required to obtain a “business license” to conduct worship services. It is using city employees to covertly attend services and acquire evidence, including video, “for future court presentation.”
City-code enforcement officer, Gerard A. Coscia – wearing a hoodie – was sent to the Common Ground Church on Feb. 9 to clandestinely film the worship service, reported the Examiner.
The following Sunday, Coscia returned to the church, which meets in the Coffee Grounds Coffee Bar, handed his business card to pastor Mike Olive and told him, “This Sunday is your last Sunday.”
Olive said he had never received a notice from the city for any violation of any local law, and only learned a non-compliance affidavit had been issued when a church employee checked the city website.
“I inspected the property and found the following violations: Business-rental property found without a current City of Lake Worth business license, specifically to operate as a church, or a house of worship,” Coscia wrote in his case narrative.
“I walked back to the Coffee Bar and was able to visualize … what appeared to be a ministry in progress,” including: “Someone speaking from a podium.” “A [sic] overhead TV or projection with scripture verse on it.” “Rows of people sitting in chairs on both sides like a gathering setting.” “People holding what appeared to be bibles or religious books as one had a cross on it.” The report stated that a video was captured on the “city phone” to be used “for future court presentation.”
But Common Grounds Coffee Bar does have a business license, Olive told the Lake Worth Tribune. He should know – he owns the business. And the site is not a church – it’s a coffee shop that leases space to a church every Sunday morning in the same manner other city restaurants and businesses rent their back rooms to neighborhood groups for their meetings. The Common Grounds site has also hosted open-mic nights and leased space for English classes for immigrants and to Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous for meetings.
Olive also noted that while the church and business share similar names, they are not identical: Common Ground vs. Common Grounds.
“Our message has been amazingly stable, and it’s: Love God, love people,” he said. Many of the 120-130 who attend weekly are in recovery from substance abuse.
Olive said he had heard that City Commissioner Andy Amoroso, who owns a newsstand and gay-pornography shop in Lake Worth, was telling people Olive and his church were “anti-gay,” a charge Olive denied and attempted to address personally with Amoroso.
Olive said Amoroso told him, “You better not have a church there. That better not be a church,” referring to the coffee bar.
It was after that exchange the code-compliance officer was sent to observe the service – based on an “anonymous complaint,” according to William Waters, who oversees the Code-Compliance Department.
“All I know is they’re a coffee shop that’s holding church services, and they cannot hold church services,” Amoroso told the Tribune.
City officials have circled the wagons on the issue.
The city has threatened Common Ground’s landlord with daily fines up to $500 and foreclosure if the “violation” is not corrected by the landlord making the church get a “business license” to meet for worship.
Mark Woods, the manager of the city’s Code-Compliance Department, insists all houses of worship in the city must have a special business license.
“A duck is a duck,” City Manager Michael Bornstein told the Tribune. “If someone is holding religious services as a church, it’s a church.” He said the city was forced to take action “to protect the community.”
“So, all they have to do is go through the conditional land-use process to make sure the impacts have been assessed … if they’re a small church, it shouldn’t be a big deal.”
But it’s already proving to be a big deal for other churches.
“It’s brand new,” pastor Joan Abell of the First Presbyterian Church told the Tribune. “We’ve been there 99 years, and we’ve never had to have a license.”
A church official, told there would be no fee for the business license if the church produced paperwork showing it has been approved as a tax-exempt organization by the IRS, hit a brick wall when trying to comply. The city employee refused to accept the church’s documentation.
In a follow-up meeting with Commissioner Amoroso about the new license requirement, a church member was told, “Oh, it’s for your own good.”
Pastor Olive isn’t buying it, and he’s prepared to fight it in court with the help of Liberty Counsel, based in Orlando.
“It’s unconstitutional,” said Olive. “They can’t deny us a right to practice our religion in the city.”
“The city’s actions are completely baseless,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.
“Lake Worth’s city ordinances specifically exempt churches and charitable organizations from needing a business license; state and federal law require local land use decisions to give equal treatment to secular and sacred assemblies; and the Free Exercise clause forbids government from prohibiting religious meetings. The coffee shop in which Common Ground Church meets has a business license, just as did the previous secular owner who hosted bands and similar gatherings.
“Government employees are public servants and prohibited by the Constitution from inhibiting religious freedom. That is a far cry from sneaking around and into a church and acting like KGB agents,” said Staver.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/u-s-city-spies-on-churches-demands-licenses/#qTU0c7cPCIuslSmB.99
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Soviet Amerika? Florida City With Homosexual Commissioner Cracks Down on Churches:

EXCERPT:
Amoroso is hardly an impartial observer. The first openly homosexual man elected to the Lake Worth City Council, Amoroso appears aggressive in homosexual activity and activism. He owns a business in the municipality known as “Studio 205,” which he bills as “The Fun Store” and “the only Pride store in Palm Beach County.” Also called an “LGBT store,” the establishment “sells dildos and gay porn” and “padded boxers,” but this is okay because Lake Worth “prides itself on an artsy, hippie way of life,” writes the Broward Palm Beach Times. In addition, Amoroso once opened what has been called his county’s “first gay travel agency,” which, presumably, doesn’t just mean a happy one.
And last year Amoroso organized and led a protest in favor of faux marriage on the steps of Lake Worth City Hall,saying, “It's really to tell Tallahassee it's not OK that gay couples can't get married in Florida.” Of course, in reality they may — form a matrimonial union with a member of the opposite sex — which is what marriage is, by correct definition.
Lake Worth code enforcement up to its old tricks
EXCERPT: 
The issue erupted on February 9, 2015 when city code enforcement officer, Gerard A. Coscia, clandestinely filmed the church service in progress and told the pastor that would be his last church service at that location. The violation was sent to the landlord for leasee Coffee Grounds Coffee - the company for which let the church borrow their space for a few hours to hold their services. Mike Olive is both the pastor of the church and the owner of the coffee shop. Libertarians are perplexed why a business owner, if already paying a licensing fee, cannot use his or her facility for a few hours a week for a religious service without having to ask the government's permission to do so.
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LAKE WORTH CODE COMPLIANCE: 
Code Compliance Division
Department for Community Sustainability
City of Lake Worth
1900 2nd Avenue North
Lake Worth, FL 33461
ccompliance@lakeworth.org
561.586.1652
Code Counter Hours
Monday – Friday
8:00am – 4:00pm
Code Officer (Office) Hours
Monday – Friday
8:00am – 9:00am
Special Magistrate Hearings 
Commission Chambers, City Hall
City of Lake Worth
7 North Dixie Highway
Lake Worth, FL 33460
Hearings
Registration: 8:30am
Cases Heard: 9:00am
Staff
J. Mark Woods, Code Compliance Manager
mwoods@lakeworth.org

Pamella Sawyer, Community Code Coordinator
psawyer@lakeworth.org

Kim Bureau, Code Compliance Technician
kbureau@lakeworth.org

Melicia Wilson, Code Compliance Technician
mwilson@lakeworth.org
Compliance Officers
Gerald Coscia, Code Officer
gcoscia@lakeworth.org

Larry D’Amato, Code Officer
ldamato@lakeworth.org
Marc DiNardo, Code Officer
mdinardo@lakeworth.org
Nicholas Petrino, Code Officer
npetrino@lakeworth.org
Yolanda Robinson, Code Officer
yrobinson@lakeworth.org
Al Vega, Code Officer
avega@lakeworth.org
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