City boots church from downtown after residents worshiped there for 25 years
By C. Douglas Golden, The Western JournalPublished June 29, 2020 at 6:33pm
Apparently, a church that's been part of the downtown scene in Salinas, California, for over a quarter of a century just isn't vibrant enough for what the city wants.
If that sounds like it's against the law to you, a court disagrees.
A Bay Area federal court has ruled that the city of Salinas can push out the New Harvest Christian Fellowship, an evangelical assembly that's been there for 25 years, because of the fact it wants "a pedestrian-friendly, active and vibrant Main Street," Fox News reported.
The city's zoning code was amended in 2006 to ban "[c]lubs, lodges, places of religious assembly, and similar assembly uses" on the first floor of buildings in the downtown area. The move had been made "to stimulate commercial activity within the City's downtown, which had been in a state of decline."
New Harvest, which had rented on Main Street for decades, bought a building on the same street in 2018. It requested to use the first floor for worship but was denied.
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