RLUIPA.org
Zoning law in Surfside violates RLUIPA, Constitution, Becket Fund says
"Can a city permit people to assemble in a theater to watch the staging of a Jewish wedding (e.g., Fiddler on the Roof), but prohibit the same number of people from assembling in a synagogue to participate in a religious Jewish wedding?" That's what the town of Surfside, Florida has done, and the answer to the question is clearly "no," according to an amicus curiae brief filed today with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
The brief was filed in the case of Midrash Sephardi, et al. v. Town of Surfside, the fourth RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) land use case to reach a federal appeals court since the law was signed in September 2000.
Surfside allows a wide variety of secular assembly land uses as of right in their B-1 district, including private clubs and lodge halls, theaters, cinemas, health clubs, music studios and language schools. Religious land uses, however, are completely prohibited in the B-1 district, and are not permitted as of right anywhere in the town. Midrash Sephardi and Young Israel of Bar Barbour are small Orthodox Jewish congregations which were formed in the 1990s, and both have been meeting on the second floor of a bank building in Surfside. The town filed suit against them in state court in 1999, seeking an injunction against using the facility as a synagogue and a $1,000 a day fine. Midrash Sephardi and Young Israel filed their own suit against the town, alleging violations of the U.S. and Florida Constitutions and the Florida RFRA.
After four years of legal wrangling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Brown ruled in May 2003 that treating houses of worship differently than private clubs was reasonable because they "do not contribute to the economic vitality of these [business and tourist] districts in the manner that the other uses do," and issued an injunction barring Midrash Sephardi and Young Israel from "occupying or operating synagogues or houses of worship" in Surfside. The case was appealed to the 11th Circuit, which stayed the injunction.
The Becket Fund brief states that Surfside's zoning ordinance violates RLUIPA's "clear and unequivocal prohibition of disparate treatment" of religious assemblies; violates "the Free Exercise Clause's command of neutrality" among religious and secular uses; and "impermissibly classifies on religion in violation of the Equal Protection Clause."