Do not feed the poor ( its a costly business and unkind )

[claud3]

A woman may be fined $600 for each day she provided free food to children in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood for the past few months.

Angela Prattis, 41, of Chester Township has been distributing free healthy lunches in a neighborhood that has a per capita income of $19,000 a year.

Prattis made no money from the meal distribution, and gave out food provided by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The “lunch lady” ran the charity out of her garage, to which about 60 children came, five days a week.

After the city council was alerted of the free lunches, it ruled that she would have to acquire a variance to give away food next summer – or pay a fine of $600 a day. The council considers Prattis’ deed a zoning violation. Three months of distributing food would instigate a fine of more than $50,000.

“It’s not like I’m selling food,” she objected.

“These kids are hungry. I’m not tearing down the community. I’m keeping the children out of harm’s way,” she said in a Fox News interview.

But a variance to distribute food would also be costly. Administrative fees for a variance would cost up to $1,000.

“You have houses here. The roofs are falling in, and they could be focused on a lot more serious issues than me feeding children,” Prattis said in response to the city council’s ruling.

The woman has three children of her own, takes care of a foster child and runs a neighborhood basketball program .

The township intitally threatened Prattis with fines for this summer’s food distribution, but withdrew them after news organizations began asking questions. Now, the township is allowing the woman to keep distributing food cost-free until August 24 – but next summer will be a lot more costly. Prattis told local news crews that she will continue helping her community.

“Tell me this program isn’t needed,” she said.

http://rt.com/usa/news/philadelphia-...d-prattis-966/


This just stupid

[F34R]

Until you understand the consequences of letting people give away food without proper licensing, health codes, zone violations, and the fallout that it carries when others want to give away stuff without paying any licensing fees, making sure their stuff is healthy, etc., then yeah, I can see how this is stupid.

[*goo]

So can't the local establishment show a little courtesy and help the lady through red tape as she's doing something that appears to genuinely help the needy?

Surely they could put together some sort of programme that helps situations like these?

[F34R]

They do have the program that helps, the variance board. Yes, it's tedious, time consuming, and costly to a degree. Its the right thing to do. Next thing ya know, the city is being blamed for allowing all the free food being given out, and the children are getting sick, infected, etc. Either way, the city will be held accountable for allowing it to happen.

[Fijiandoce]

i thought the UK was bad! du fuq is dis!!

lol, this is sad.

at least we in the UK have sense

[TRF]

On one hand, I think it's ridiculous what the city is doing. On the other hand, F34R is right in that there could be problems regarding health if the food is unregulated. I don't think the city should be charging her so much in fines, but should rather be helping her through red tape as *goo said.

[F34R]

The problem is that once they start giving others "help" then they'll start getting backlash from others, to do it for them too, etc. It is better for everyone to be treated the same as far as the processing goes. If we want to say give her some help, they did by not enforcing the fines, etc.

[claud3]

Look, their should be no rules simple as.. their is so much food wasted in the world, that a bit of kindness goes a long way and feeds the hungry

[F34R]

Look, their should be no rules simple as.. their is so much food wasted in the world, that a bit of kindness goes a long way and feeds the hungry

Take away the suing of the city when they've allowed it and people get sick and die...

Might as well just disband the entire food inspection sections of the government and let any kind of food be given away, anywhere... who cares about diseases that pass from this stuff and kills people.

[Super_Lilith]

Yeah we need some admin for this help, but the article says it costs up to $1000 for this admin, what the F are they checking with? Gold plated Petri dishes and platinum inked health and safety certificates?