Volunteers who want to donate food to a New York City-run homeless shelter will be turned away. As I wrote in the New York Post in March,

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

With many New Yorkers City residents still suffering from the effects of super storm Sandy, the issue is back in the news. As part of a radio segment on how we have too much faith in government, Rush Limbaugh, on Friday, said,

And, remember, if you see a homeless person in New York, you are not permitted to donate food.  Mayor Doomberg has said that food donations to the homeless are not permitted because there is nobody in place right now to check the salt and fat content of the food that you are donating, and therefore no donations are permitted.  And of course that makes perfect sense.  I mean, we wouldn’t want to give people who are starving or haven’t had food in a while, stuff that is not nutritious.  We wouldn’t want to give people food with too much salt, too much fat content, it would be unhealthy.  Even when they’re hungry, that’s right, the mayor is exactly right about this.  Even in the midst of starvation, you still can’t give people food without first checking the salt and fat content.  You people need to stop worrying in New York and New Jersey.  Your government’s on the case.  They’ll fix it.

My piece was also the basis of an MSN piece earlier in the week.

A New York City’s Department of Homeless Services spokesman told me this spring that this is not just a homeless shelter rule. Presumably, the food ban would apply to city-shelters set up for Sandy evacuees as well.