Nick Cooper stands in the security line amid a sea of people with parking tickets and moving violations. He has an 8 a.m. hearing at the Houston Municipal Court about a citation he received this year for distributing food to unhoused people outside of the Central Houston Library branch downtown. Cooper is one of many volunteers with Food Not Bombs Houston (FNBH) who is facing trial after the City of Houston began enforcing a decade-old ordinance that makes the group’s food distribution—which has been occurring at the site for about 20 years—illegal.
Houston Police officers have issued at least 63 citations to volunteers around the Central Library branch since Mayor Sylvester Turner declared the ordinance an enforcement priority earlier this year, according to a spokesperson for the municipal courts. The timing seemed strange to volunteers—the ordinance banning food-sharing had been in effect since 2012. The citations, issued for “conduct[ing] a food service event without consent of property owner” carry potential fines ranging from $254 (if volunteers don’t contest the tickets) to as much as $2,000. Rather than eating the fines, volunteers have been opting for jury trials. The ultimate goal is to overturn the ordinance itself.
“This is an unconstitutional law. It prevents freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It is part of our group’s mission to share food in public—not in church parking lots or anything like that,” Cooper told the Texas Observer over the phone in the days before his hearing. “This isn’t just a question of us getting out of some individual ticket. … The law itself has to be overturned … but meanwhile, we’ve got to deal with all these municipal lawsuits. They’re going to be a pain in the ass, and we have to fight each one individually.”
