This story was originally published March 15, 1998
Tucked in a Fairview alley just past a Dumpster, two stainless steel tables serve as the city’s funkiest free buffet.
Open seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the tables behind Michael O'Callaghan's home hold treasures that 14 Anchorage-area grocery stores otherwise might have tossed: bruised tomatoes, limp sandwiches, a partial bag of rice.
Last Wednesday, three elderly women dressed in polyester slacks and silk scarves arrived in a Volvo and left with fruit rolls and packages of cubed fresh fruit. Two other women spied a mountain of plastic tubs filled with salsa. A man chomping a cigar stepped from a battered van to scoop up an armload of bread.
The people who come to his backyard buffet -- O'Callaghan has counted more than 100 in a day -- rely on it to help make ends meet and survive during unlucky times. James Ro, an immigrant from Korea, explained that he started browsing the tables after he suffered a stroke and drove his cab into a snow bank.
''The food is good,'' said Ro. ''It helps.''
But after more than a decade, the buffet sponsored by EARTH, a charity O'Callaghan helped start, is in jeopardy. Although people have complained about the alley food bank virtually since it started, the city's health department only recently has begun an earnest effort to close it down.
The change is due to a new group of Department of Health and Human Services administrators, hired over the past two years. They were shocked when they learned about O'Callaghan's buffet.
''This is the only operation like it that comes close to having this level of risk,'' said Beverly Wooley, the program manager working on the case.
O'Callaghan -- who started giving away food after scoring 167 gallons of ice cream from a Dumpster -- isn't listening. He said if he can save just one person from starving, fighting the city is worth it.
''Saying this is illegal is like, wow, what a concept,'' he said, shaking his head.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Almost every afternoon, Jarrid Hill, manager of the four-plex next door, cleans up around O'Callaghan's tables. Removing empty boxes, stale donuts and rotting fruit from his tenants' parking places is a daily chore he hates.
Although some neighbors like O'Callaghan and happily help him clean it up, Hill's family has long been trying to make O'Callaghan take better care of his operation. Gwen Wagner, Hill's grandmother, said she recently saw two small children picking food from the table. Outraged, she called the health department.
The city has collected 25 such complaints since 1989. The complaints describe perishables left out for days, an overflowing Dumpster and, in the summer, an alley overrun with flies and stench.
Inside her office, Wooley keeps a scrapbook of photos snapped by city investigators who checked out those complaints. The photos show apples covered with an unidentifiable white goo, a man next to the table fending off a moose and her calf, and a dog urinating on the side of one of the tables.
Such conditions are ripe for disease, said Wooley. She worries people will eat food contaminated with salmonella, shigela or other forms of bacteria. She also fears that people rifling through groceries might transmit Hepatitis A or other diseases passed by when small bits of feces stuck on hands get into food.
Wildlife pose additional health and safety problems, said Wooley. Pigeons sometimes land on the food and moose eat off the table. Wooley's worst fear is that an angry moose will stomp someone to death.
Talking with O'Callaghan hasn't worked. After repeated reports of the moose charging people throughout the winter, the city issued an 20-day emergency order on Jan. 16 to close the site.
O'Callaghan removed the signs, stashing four in his house and giving the fifth away to someone as a souvenir. The city responded by carting the food away in garbage trucks until the order expired in mid-February.
The alley is now back in business and Wooley said city attorneys are looking for more permanent solutions.
''We're moving toward citing him, hopefully quickly,'' she said. But before the city proceeds, Wooley said the case needs to be foolproof. O'Callaghan is popular -- and wily.
''He's adamant that big government is just trying to keep people hungry,'' Wooley said. ''We're adamant that these programs should exist, but they should be safe.''
A DIFFERENT STANDARD
Anyone who knows Michael O'Callaghan understands the city is in for a long fight.
George Hieronymus, executive director of Bean's Cafe, describes him as an amiable but intense hippie who doesn't like government.
In the past, O'Callaghan has resorted to hunger strikes and lawsuits to fight for his free fish giveaways and against a state rule that allows fisherman to strip roe from salmon and dump the carcasses at sea.
His real weapon, though, is laughter. ''When you really lose is when you take it seriously because then the joke is on you,'' he said.
O'Callaghan freely admits the alley food bank isn't completely sanitary. He hasn't seen dogs peeing on the food but birds have pooped on it, he said, collapsing into hysterical laughter.
When they realized the problem, he and his wife, Lydia Darby, extended the roof over the tables. Then they shot the birds and ate them. That fixed it.
''Stimulus. Response,'' said O'Callaghan. ''They learn.''
O'Callaghan and Darby would like to do the same thing with the moose, then distribute the meat to the same people that rely on EARTH for groceries. When O'Callaghan offered to shoot the moose with a bow and arrow, the Fish and Game Department declined.
O'Callaghan tried similarly creative solutions when the city first began telling him he needed a permit. He found a section in the city's food facility code that exempted churches and clubs feeding their own members. He claimed the buffet was both, and posted a sign that read ''members only.''
O'Callaghan realizes he has a different standard of food safety than the city -- one rooted in his vast experiences Dumpster diving. He has pushed the food safety envelope, but always knew where to draw the line. Most people do, he said. For example, you can tell by the smell if meat or fish is rotten, he said. And if something other than a vegetable is green, it's a pretty good sign to leave it alone.
Over the years, O'Callaghan's operation has boomed from a few surplus boxes left in the front yard after his diving excursions to what it is now -- one of the largest, and most casual, food banks in Anchorage.
More than 100 volunteers from EARTH gather extra food from nine Carrs' stores, three Fred Meyer's and two Sagaya's. Most cast-offs go straight to needy homes or to small distribution centers. The leftovers land on the tables behind Medfra Street. O'Callaghan estimates his group moves nearly 2 million pounds of food annually through Anchorage.
SEEKING SUPPORT
Besides looking into legal options, Wooley has talked to Carrs, trying to get the store to cut O'Callaghan off, and to food banks, trying to win support for shutting down the EARTH tables without ruffling feathers in the larger food-distribution community.
Little progress has been made with the stores. Jeff Philipps, a senior vice president at Carrs, said he wants to give O'Callaghan ample opportunity to respond to the city's requests before he discontinues donations.
''We want to be real careful not to disrupt the flow of food to people who are hungry,'' Philipps said.
New Sagaya manager Dale Tran echoed his comments.
The city might have more luck with stores managed by Outsiders. Mary Burczyk, a senior vice president with Fred Meyer in Portland, Ore., was surprised to hear that a moose might be eating some of the food it donates to EARTH.
''We would be providing him quality food, and we would want it delivered in a quality method,'' Burczyk said.
Directors of other Anchorage food banks and charity kitchens were reluctant to comment specifically about EARTH, but most agreed that O'Callaghan needs a valid city permit to protect the quality of the food.
Heironymus, executive director of Bean's Cafe, suggested that the city seek some kind of compromise for O'Callaghan. EARTH does a lot to make food available to people, he said.
Only one food bank handler, Alice Lawrence, known as Mother Lawrence, scolded O'Callaghan outright. The two have clashed in the past, she said. Lawrence claims the long-standing beef now limits her ability to collect food from Carrs -- the donation mother lode.
For safety's sake and for the sake of other food banks, Lawrence hopes the city will crack down on O'Callaghan. If that doesn't happen, she hopes the stores will reconsider giving him food.
''I’ve seen his operation. I said, ‘Lord, get me out of here, this is disgusting,’ '' Lawrence said. ''I am praying that Carrs wakes up and denounces him.''