Wonkette: Christian Texas Lady Thinks Religious Freedom Protects Her Right To Feed The Homeless, AS IF

Top-notch cranky morning writeup from one of our all-time online favorites, The Wonkette.  Here's the gist, folks:

Pffft. Everybody knows that the proper way to exercise your religion is in a church — or by denying health care to lady employees or refusing to provide floral arrangements and pizzas to gay couples gettin’ gay-married to each other. Ms. Cheever, however, does not understand how the rules work and foolishly told the ticketing officer, “This is how I pray, when I cook this food and deliver it to the people who are less fortunate.”
Sorry, Ms. Cheever, but according to the city of San Antonio, if you want to do your do-gooding, you’ll have to take it to the city’s designated homeless shelter downtown. And pay a $2000 fine for illegally feeding the homeless from your unlicensed food truck in a No Feeding The Homeless Zone, as you’ve been doing for the last decade but all of a sudden, it is A Issue.

Read up, peeps:

• Christian Texas Lady Thinks Religious Freedom Protects Her Right To Feed The Homeless, AS IF

Sodden editorial-style overview, posed by one of our most cherished WCF readers, semi-privately:

"I guess to be a Christian you have to talk like one but don't go acting like one, that will get you in trouble in bible thumping country."

Comments, please anyone? Ferris?

Standard-Examiner: Ogden Council Approves (Loosened) Food Truck Restrictions

Yep, folks, the Council has adopted a cautious "wait and see" approach -- They'll be hunkering down to find out whether any aggrieved Food Truck vendor eventually files a lawsuit.

The Standard-Examiner reported Thursday on an interesting development on the Ogden City Council regulatory front.  Here's the lede:

OGDEN — The Ogden City Council will take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to deciding whether to loosen restrictions on the newly allowed mobile food trucks in downtown Ogden.
On Tuesday, the council voted to approve an ordinance that allows mobile food trucks to operate in commercial areas throughout Ogden, and most notably, the Central Business District, which is considered the area between 20th and 27th streets between Adams Avenue and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.
Prior to the ordinance being passed, food trucks were allowed only in manufacturing zones.

Here's the full Mitch Shaw story:

• Ogden council approves food truck restrictions

And here's the agenda item from Tuesday's Special City Council Meeting calender:

6. Reports from the Planning Commission:
b. Mobile Food Trucks. Proposed Ordinance 2014-34 amending Section 15-2 of the Ogden City Code to define and provide uniform standards for mobile food trucks, and to allow mobile food trucks to operate in certain zones. (Accept public input; adopt/not adopt ordinance)

We've also linked the full council packet, for those who require the full nitty-gritty (scroll to page 32):

• 08/12/14 Council Packet

Mr. Shaw refers to the Council's Tuesday action as one characterized as a "wait-and-see approach," which is probably entirely accurate, in view of a line of recent federal court decisions which seem to lean toward a fast-developing rule of  federal constitutional law providing that "the economic protection of a discrete interest group [existing 'brick and mortar' restauraunts in this instance] does not constitute a legitimate state interest under 'rational basis' [federal constitutional] review":

• Boston Law Review: The Fifth Circuit Lays Economic Protectionism to Rest in St. Joseph Abbey

As an added bonus, we'll link a couple of robust Institute for Justice informational pamphlets, providing a broad overview and guidance, concerning the direction which U.S. Food Truck and Street Vendor Regulation seems to be moving, within the current multi-jurisdictional American landscape:

• Food Truck Freedom - How to Build Better Food -Truck Laws in Your City
• Streets of Dreams - How Cities Can Create Economic Opportunity by By Knocking Down Protectionist Barriers to Street Vending

Yep, folks, the Council has adopted a cautious "wait and see" approach, alright.  They'll no doubt  be hunkering down to find out whether any aggrieved Food Truck vendor eventually files a lawsuit, we suspect.

We'll also point out that our sympathies lie with our existing "brick and mortar" Ogden restaurateur entrepreneurs, who are the real investors in our community.

So what say out Gentle Readers about all this?