Tom LaBonge and Mitch O'Farrell want to make it illegal to give food away on the streets of Los Angeles. They are shameless enough to say explicitly that it will still be OK to sell food. Just giving it away will become illegal. It's almost like they don't know what the word "public" means. Public streets are for eating on, among other things. They are also for people showing their love for one another by sharing food. People with or without housing who live in this city are equally human and they are equally citizens. The streets belong to everyone.

They are supported in this by Richard Bloom, who, not content with having turned Santa Monica into a paradise for squeamish zillionaires who want to be able to walk from their limos to their gracious dining establishments without having to step over starving sick people on the sidewalk, has lent his purely gratuitous support to the machinations of LaBonge and O'Farrell.

The issue is this: The Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition feeds a couple hundred homeless people every night at the corner of Romaine and Sycamore on the Western edge of Hollywood. They've been doing this for decades. This was formerly a run-down industrial area, but, as always, the forces of development and greed are waxing fat and now the Hollywood Media Business Improvement District wants to build multi-use developments in the area and make sure that squeamish zillionaires can walk from their limos to their gracious dining establishments without having to step over starving sick people on the sidewalk just like they get to do in Santa Monica. The BID therefore went to their pet councildudes, O'Farrell and LaBonge, and got them to propose this motion to illegalize the homeless. The BID natters on about how they just want to help the food coalition be responsible, but they're lying through their teeth.