Guatay Christian Fellowship Update

The GCF is still technically under cease and desist orders from the County for practicing their 1st amendment right to peaceably assemble and worship as the building in which the 50-member GCF congregates is zoned for a bar instead of a church and knowing that is certainly a disastrous tactic by which to attack the Fellowship, it appears the County has resorted to harrassment in the form of site inspections, instead.

(For some background on this whole fiasco, click here)

The church resumed services at the building Aug. 10, but four days later a county inspection found unsafe wiring and lighting, an improperly installed furnace and water heater and an unsafe doorway, according to a letter to the church from Senior Deputy County Counsel Eliot Alazraki. Those violations, and many others, create fire and safety hazards, Alazraki said.

My god… not an unsafe doorway!

Church attorney Peter Lepiscopo said he believed the county used “heavy-handed tactics”

The church has been meeting at members' homes since the county inspection. Pastor Stan Peterson said he did not believe the violations were major and hoped to return to the building within a month or so

In our line of work, what the County is finding is akin to “underway restrictives” which if looked for long and hard enough, one will find.

Pastor Stan advised the congregation two Sundays ago when we were out there to not get angry at the County… “….they aren’t stupid, they just do stupid stuff sometimes”.

We respect the admonition but its becoming more and more difficult to bestow any grace upon the County when they have had ample opportunity to pull their head out of their ass and politely drop the whole matter but rather continue to fight a petty and nettlesome rear-guard action when they know they don’t have a legal, ethical or common sensical leg upon which to stand.

Hey, Eliot Alazraki... Yeah, Johnny's on the phone... he says, "hi"

Story here

We Trust May 30th was just an epically slow day around the County offices. (UPDATED)

We have forgotten the exact details of the story but years ago, a magazine alleged an affair between Ann Coulter and some high profile journo-political type whose name escapes us at the moment. Coulter’s response to this allegation was: “I look forward to owning (name of magazine) in the very near future.” Said magazine recanted allegation and issued profuse apologies and Coulter dropped her defamation(?) charges (she has dated both Bill Maher and Bob Gucionne Jr., so we can’t imagine who it was she was linked to that caused her to react in such a manner. Bill Maher….? That’s just, ick…..)

Anyway, we would hope that 50 or so members of the Guatay Christian Fellowship take a rather large chunk out of the County of San Diego after what they are currently enduring.

The members of the Church were given a cease and desist order by County officials because the building in which they hold services is zoned for selling beer and wine but not for holding religious services. This is not a typo – this is actually happening.

The previous owner of the building wanted to make a go of a country and western bar but when that fell through, Stan Patterson, the pastor and his flock moved in…. 22 years ago.

Deputy County Counsel Eliot Alazraki told Peterson in a May 30 letter that the county would take legal action against him if the members of the nondenominational church in the community of Guatay continued worshipping at the trailer park.

“We do not pass judgment on whether the use you are making of the building is a better use than the approved one,” Alazraki wrote. “We are only called upon to decide whether the use is legal or illegal.”

The idiot, Alazraki, is actually correct in this self-assessment as any “judgement” on his part was exercised very sparingly.

It gets better….

Charles LePla, an attorney for trailer park owner John O'Flynn, said new permits for the church would cost at least $10,000, plus thousands more for environmental studies.

Words escape us.

Thankfully, the good people of GCF aren’t taking this lying down and are suing the County for violating their rights to assemble and worship.

We don’t know what torques us off more: the jock-twisting of our American sensibilities toward the 1st Amendment, the complete absence of any common sense being applied by these lackey bureaucrats at the County offices or the fact that our tax dollars will be used to defend the County’s position which will get absolutely vaporized under a mushroom cloud in a court of law?

Actually, drop that last one. We’ll pay to see that.

… and to think that this whole thing could have been avoided if the Church were serving-up the real deal at communion instead of grape juice.

P.S. We have half a mind (no small feat, that) to roll on out there Sunday morning, Bible in hand, Welch's in the cooler and tailgate in solidarity with our east county neighbors. Who's in?

UPDATE #1: Our sources tell us that Guatay Christian Fellowship will be exercising their 1st amendment right to worship in defiance of pointy-headed bureaucracy this Sunday at 1000. Check their site here for directions.