California Couple Fined $300 for Holding Home Bible Studies

I think if their bible study is up to 50 people twice a week - (sounds more like a church) why don’t they find a room to rent or a store front or something?

No one is telling them they cannot worship ..

The impact on the neighborhood has to be great - even if they arrived 4 people to a car that’s an extra 12 cars on the street - quite a bit .. it’s probably more ..

I don’t see this as a “freedom of worship” or “freedom of assembly” issue but rather as a zoning issue.

The Google map link above was helpful for me. Consider the “street view” and that the house is at the end of a cul-de-sac. If 50 people means 25 cars (2 per car), it would be disruptive to the neighborhood.

PLewis above has it right!

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Jim,

I disagree. There are no homes at all on one side of the street, which looks long enough to handle 50 cars (if everyone came alone) on one side of the street without impacting the other side at all.

Regardless, it is a public street. As long as no one is blocking driveways or parking in someone”s front yard, the public has every right to park there - whether for a one time party or a weekly Bible study.

Furthermore, while Clinton was in office, the law was changed to established that church groups cannot be zoned out of meeting in homes. This fine is nothing but an end-around to circumvent that law.

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?

Jim,

You reference something PLewis said, but I don’t see a post by anyone but you (and now me).

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?

[Chip Van Emmerik] Jim,

You reference something PLewis said, but I don’t see a post by anyone but you (and now me).
He said:
I think if their bible study is up to 50 people twice a week - (sounds more like a church) why don’t they find a room to rent or a store front or something?

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[Chip Van Emmerik] I disagree. There are no homes at all on one side of the street, which looks long enough to handle 50 cars (if everyone came alone) on one side of the street without impacting the other side at all.
Did you check out the “street view”? Do a “360” in the street view and see how tight it is back there

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/09/20/oc-couple-threatened-with-500…(link is external) Here’s additional reporting

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re PLewis - guess I just wasn’t fully awake yet. :~

re parking - yeah, I checked out the street on the map link you provided. I stand by my original position. People can park all the way down the side of the street without houses.

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?

This is not so nefarious as some are making it out to be. Would you want to live next door to someone who had 50 people over twice a week for a Tupperware party? So what if there is sufficient parking on the street? It still clogs up a residential neighborhood. I would not want to live where there are no zoning laws or neighborhood covenants to prohibit such things.

Donn R Arms

I guess my question is if this group of 50 people are just getting together to study the Bible .. why don’t they use multiple homes .. or rotate homes?

I think they are being a bit ingenuous when they say it is not a church - yet the meet regularly .. and stay together as a group. A group of 50 is awful large for a “bible study” ..

I think as Christians we should be willing to live within the governances God has given us .. While our nation has laws granting us the freedom to worship, and to assemble - we still need to live within the community.

To me it doesn’t matter if one side of the street doesn’t have houses .. the cars still will clog the street … on a REGULAR basis.

Maybe I’m too cognizant of neighborhood stuff - we too live in a “semi rural” neighborhood. Things are pretty free wheeling around here - and as president of our POA I have to handle the “complaints” .. not fun when one party doesn’t think how their actions are affecting the community. NOW take it up a notch - while some neighbors may not mind at all - there may (and probably are) a few that do NOT like all the hub-bub on a Sunday morning. Not very neighborly.

If I read correctly, the article said meetings could be up to 50, not that there were 50 people at each meeting.
…Orange County, fined Charles and Stephanie Fromm $300 for having as many as 50 people assembled at their home twice a week…
emphasis added

I still believe the neighbors are just whining. A line of cars down the opposite side of the road from the houses is not an eyesore or an inconvenience. It just cars parked along the road; they should get over it.

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?

If zoning laws allow it, it doesn’t matter who thinks it’s obnoxious- it’s not against the law. But if there are ordinances that control the size and frequency of gatherings, the Bible study aspect doesn’t excuse violations.

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[Chip Van Emmerik] I still believe the neighbors are just whining. A line of cars down the opposite side of the road from the houses is not an eyesore or an inconvenience. It just cars parked along the road; they should get over it.
From the link above - additional reporting
Neighbors have written letters to the city in support of the Fromms, whom they said have not caused any disturbances with the meetings
My own view is basically the same as Donn Arms (earlier post). If I had a dozen cars parked on my street twice a week … I wouldn’t like it

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Most neighborhoods have limits as to how many guests and cars you can have on your property. We had a family reunion a few years ago, and had to notify the city because of the number of cars that would be parked in our yard and on our street. There are limits as to how high your grass is allowed to grow (10”), how high your fence can be (and you have to have a permit to put up or move a fence) and how long your dog can bark (no more than 20 minutes at a stretch) before you are in violation of the animal code. For garage sales, there are guidelines for how large signage can be and where you can put it, and you can’t have a garage sale every week, or you have to apply for a vendor’s license.

For a regular weekly gathering, whether formal or informal, I am sure that there are limits in the zoning code. The right thing to do is to find out what those limits are and comply with them. Christians need to stop using ‘religious liberty’ as an excuse to push the envelope and every time they get in some kind of trouble.

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