Religious persecution, or overbearing regulations?
You're making all kinds of ridiculous assumptions based on the notion that they were somehow being persecuted. Which makes you sound exactly like a "poor me" Christian.
You might dislike those kind of laws--I know that I do--but I've never, ever known them to be enforced unless the issue was forced by other people in the community/neighborhood.
If my assumptions are ridiculous, based on what may have been a poorly-written article, then many in this thread and beyond are equally "ridiculous". Bottom line, according to the article, the line of questioning had nothing to do with parking and traffic issues, and everything to do with the purpose of their meetings; they were then cited. What are we supposed to assume? Sorry, but that's not "poor me", and if you think it is, that's your right to feel that way.
And I know from experience that it just takes ONE overly sensitive neighbor to cause something like this. I had a neighbor who complained about my dogs "that barked all night" -- my dogs were always inside and crated at night, so it was impossible for it to be my dogs that he heard. Nevertheless, I was investigated and from that day on had Animal Control patrolling our neighborhood, checking out my facilities for the dogs. This guy knew that I had 5-6 dogs at a time, and was determined that I shouldn't have that many (and I was in compliance with all local licensing and rabies laws). I asked all my other neighbors if they ever heard my dogs at night, and they said no (even though I knew there was NO WAY he heard my dogs). So, it was ONE NEIGHBOR, and an unreasonable one at that, which caused me to be scrutinized by officials up until the day we moved. So, and this is another assumption so take it that way, there is a possibility that it was ONE neighbor, like my old neighbor, who simply didn't like cars on the street, period, and rather than confront the pastor directly (my neighbor never confronted me directly either), they moved directly to an official complaint.