RLUIPA Suit Challenges City's Refusal To Allow Homeless Ministry To Continue

A suit was filed last week in a California federal district court by the Stanford Law School Religious Liberty Clinic on behalf of a church in San Buenaventura, California that was denied a permit to continue to operate its ministry to the homeless in its current location.  The complaint (full text) in Harbor Missionary Church Corp. v. City of San Buenaventura, (CD CA, filed 5/14/2014), contends that the church's rights under the 1st Amendment and RLUIPA were violated when the city refused to recognize that the current permit to operate as a church was sufficient to allow the church to continue to offer meals, clothing, laundry and shower facilities, Bible study and prayer to the homeless, and then refused to issue the church a conditional use permit to allow the ministry to continue. Here is Plaintiff's Memorandum in Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Courthouse News Service reports on the case. [Thanks to Paul Harold for the lead.]