What about everybody else’s rights?
San Juan Capistrano is an old, densely populated city with narrow streets. I guarantee they’re creating parking and traffic havoc.
Twice-weekly meetings with upwards of fifty people is not just having some friends over. They’re running a church in a residential neighborhood. Period. And it shouldn’t be allowed.
A church colonized in a house on a residential street near me, and it was a disaster for the poor people on the adjacent streets. The court confiscated the value of their homes and quality of life when they ruled that the church could stay, contrary to zoning laws because, well, Freedom of Religion.
Your next-door neighbor can’t open a Starbucks in their garage for obvious reasons. Why should they be allowed to operate a church?
It’s law. By right churches may locate in residential areas. Sometime local fascists get out of line and think the law no longer applies to them, but it does.
That is an oversweeping generalization that does not apply to many parts of the city.