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The Masjid Salaam Cultural Center in northeast Minneapolis hosts daily prayers, Sunday school and the occasional food drive. But members say the mosque has one major flaw it has no designated parking.
That means people coming to the mosque, including the elderly and disabled and the 170 children who attended school there before the pandemic, have to park several blocks away or get out of vehicles on the side of busy Central Avenue.
The mosque has tried for years to persuade the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to build parking stalls by paving over green space along St. Anthony Parkway. The conflict pits assertions of religious liberty against the sanctity of public parkland, and it s coming to a head after the Council on American-Islamic Relations Minnesota (CAIR-Minnesota) gave the Park Board a deadline this month to avoid a lawsuit.