Kent Vann came into work Wednesday knowing he wouldn't have to turn away the 131st person in the lunch line.
The city lifted the 130-meal limit restriction on local soup kitchens and replaced it with a three-hour time limit after a series of meetings.
On Wednesday, city soup kitchens officially started operating under the new rule.
City soup kitchens have had to follow a city restriction since 2004 that stated they could serve no more than 130 meals a day. Before that, soup kitchens had to follow a 75-meal limit that started in the 1990s.
"It's definitely about time," said Vann, executive director of the St. Francis House.
The St. Francis House's chosen lunch hours - 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. - brought 101 people, Vann said. But the crowd is usually small at the beginning of the month because that's when paychecks come in, so the need for free food isn't as urgent.
He said he expects more people to show up for lunch closer to the end of the month when their paychecks run out.
Michael Noffsinger, 32, munched on his jambalaya, bread and vegetables Wednesday and said he's glad the meal limit is gone.
"I didn't agree with it in the first place," he said.
Noffsinger, who is homeless, said the meal limit felt like it was meant to drive homeless people away from downtown.
"People take the bad, and they make it a stereotype of the whole population," Noffsinger said.
While the meal limit officially applied to all city soup kitchens, St. Francis House was the only soup kitchen affected. St. Francis House is one of two soup kitchens in the city. The other, The Salvation Army, was officially established before the meal limit was in place, so it didn't have to follow the limit.
Opponents of the meal limit were concerned that changing the meal limit to a time limit would draw more homeless people to the St. Francis House.
To address the problem, the organization requires people to get police clearance from the Gainesville Police before they can receive any services.
The clearance was required for anyone who stayed at St. Francis House overnight, but as of Wednesday, the clearance is required for any service, including lunch.
Other changes include making sure trash outside St. Francis House is picked up and warning people not to loiter in neighbors' yards or they could lose their ability to get services from the soup kitchen, said Lee Smith, director of operations.
Vann said the change means the soup kitchen will get less unwanted attention.
"Finally, we can just focus on the mission at hand," he said. "It's going to be nice not to have to turn people away."
The St. Francis House soup kitchen was able to serve meals during a three-hour time frame as of Wednesday, rather than the previous limit of 130 meals a day.
