Today's South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports on last week's Florida federal district court decision in Hollywood Community Synagogue v. City of Hollywood, Fla., 2006 WL 1320044 (S.D.Fla., 2006, May 10, 2006). The Hollywood Community Synagogue Chabad Lubavitch, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, has has sued the city of Hollywood alleging various violations of the synagogue's religious freedoms after the Hollywood City Commission reversed the grant of a Special Exception to zoning restrictions that had been granted by the city's Development Review Board. The Commission said that the synagogue was "too controversial". (See prior posting.)
The court held that the synagogue had sufficiently shown a practice of harassment and selective enforcement against the Synagogue through checking daily for code violations and ticketing only cars parked on the synagogue's side of the street. The court dismissed the synagogue's claim under the federal RLUIPA and Florida's RFRA that a substantial burden was placed on its religious exercise by the city's denial of a Special Exception under its zoning laws, but permitted the synagogue to proceed with its discrimination claim under RLUIPA, as well as its equal protection, due process and promissory estoppel claims. It also permitted it to move ahead on its claim that City's Zoning and Land Development Regulations fail to provide objective criteria to measure zoning decisions made by the Commission.
