Due to its pro-freedom policies, Florida is quickly becoming one of the most expensive states to live in.
Of course, this has activists wanting to impose some of the same destructive policies that led to the exodus from the other states: things like rent control and eviction moratoriums.
In Jacksonville, Florida, an affordable housing protest was calling for just those sorts of polices. The protestors staged an eviction in front of City Hall... which was then disrupted as city workers began hauling away their prop furniture.
The organizers were shocked and outraged, but continued the protest unabated. According to local news, one protestor at least understood the irony of the situation. Activist Shayne Tremblay said,
That couldn't have been more symbolic than them basically staging an eviction at our rally for affordable housing, so I think they did us a favor painting the point we're trying to make.
Democratic Florida state representative Angie Nixon said,
To call city workers in and pay them over time instead of making sure that our parks are clean are drainage problems are fixed the flooding issues are stopped they decided to do this because they want to continue attacking our constitutional rights.
The part that representative Nixon neglected to mention was that while the protestors had permission to stage the event, they did not have permission to use furniture to blockade the doors to City Hall.
The City of Jacksonville released the statement below regarding the incident.
"They were illegally blocking a government building," the city said. "It was a fire hazard with a complete blockage of the entrance and exit to City Hall. We asked them twice to please move the furniture because it was in violation of fire code and it could also be considered illegal dumping. They refused to move it. Because this is violating an ordinance, we had city crews to come retrieve it. We have no issue with protests being held at City Hall, and people have every right to march back-and-forth in front of the building, hold signs etc. But we cannot allow the blockage of the entrance and exit doors. We wish they would have complied with our requests to just simply move the furniture and carry on with their events, but unfortunately they refused."
It seems to me that this outcome was exactly what the protestors were hoping for to get some news coverage of their protest. I wonder who's furniture got taken away though.
Some poor guy is going to come home and find that his roommate used all his furniture for a protest and that he didn't have this month's rent.
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