Church group vows to meet again in city hall

Aurelio Perri
12/12/2011

It worked for Occupy Calgary now another group has decided to use City Hall for its purposes. Street Church, which has battled the city in the courts over bylaw infractions, will hold its second noon-time worship in the Municipal building Atrium on Tuesday.  Alderman Diane Colley Urquhart says this is the slippery slope she was talking about in how the city allowed Occupy Calgary to have free reign for the past couple of months.  A month ago when Occupy moved into the Atrium and did some meditating that provided the impetus for Street Church to come into city hall read a little gospel, sing some hymns and talk about the Bible.

In a release they say with the new climate of tolerance, they’ll be back again over the noon hour.  Alderman Andre Chabot says it’s time for the city to establish policy for the use of municipal infrastructure whether it be City Hall or other facilities.  He says there has to be a requirement for groups to go through a process about what’s taking place, put a timeline in place and not have conflicting interests going on at the same time.