Ohio appellate court lets makeshift church challenge local fire codes on religious grounds

Conservative attorneys reframed a public safety issue as anti-Christian discrimination—and judges fell for it

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After years of being hit with zoning violations because his church was sheltering unhoused people without proper permits, an Ohio appellate court has given the pastor a important win, telling a lower court judge that he didn’t carefully consider the church’s religious rights.

I first wrote about this story years ago, but this all began after a Christian pastor in the town of Bryan (just outside Toledo) decided to take in unhoused people because they had nowhere else to go. Rev. Chris Avell was later charged with 18 zoning violations by the city and pleaded not guilty to all of them.

Rev. Chris Avell (screenshot via WTOL 11)

At a time when the weather in the midwest was freezing even more than usual, it seemed downright cruel to punish a pastor for trying to help the less fortunate. After all, isn’t that what Christians ought to be doing? Isn’t that Jesus-like? How is he the bad guy here?!

“What Avell did seemed a humane no-brainer,” said an opinion piece in the Columbus Dispatch. “Pastor Faces Charges For Giving The Homeless A Place To Sleep,” reads the headline at Above the Law.

Those were fair points. Homelessness really is a big problem in our country. Cities as small as Bryan and as large as San Francisco have struggled to deal with the issue.

But whenever a right-wing legal group like First Liberty takes up a cause, and the pastor in question does a full media blitz on conservative propaganda outlets, it’s at least worth taking a closer look at why the city was pursuing him before rushing to his defense.

That starts by talking about the church.

“Dad’s Place” isn’t really a church. It’s technically a video arcade called “Crane N Able’s Mini Claw Mania”—clever name!—which is why it was allowed to open up inside a business district. In 2020, Avell requested permission to set up a church inside the building and the city gave it to him with the understanding that he would abide by the city’s zoning laws.

Most news stories about the situation focused on the technical rule that Avell broke: Because his church was located in a business district, residential use on the first floor was prohibited. That meant people were not supposed to eat, wash their clothing, or sleep there.

Yet when the city’s Fire Chief did an inspection of his “church” on November 21 of 2023, he found 18 separate violations, which led to the criminal charges.

But, you might respond, who cares?! These people need a place to stay! It’s bitterly cold outside! And even though there’s a homeless shelter next door to the church, it doesn’t have enough space to take in everyone who needs help!

Those might be fair arguments. They’re certainly compassionate. But what many articles were missing is that city officials weren’t going after Avell because he was helping the homeless. They were going after him because he was literally putting the lives of those homeless people in danger.

It’s the same reason a church can’t just open up a soup kitchen on a whim. There are local regulations that need to be followed in order to make sure everything’s safe. As long as those rules are obeyed, more power to the organizations that do it!

Consider what the Bryan Fire Chief discovered in November of 2023 during that inspection of Dad’s Place:

… Several of these violations were serious and potentially endanger the lives and safety of those in the building. Some of the serious violations included improper installation of laundry facilities, inadequate or unsafe exit areas, LP cylinder for gas grill improperly placed inside the building, an unpermitted gas dryer installed with impermissible plastic duct outside Ohio Mechanical Code guidelines, no permitted and approved kitchen hood over the stove, and limited ventilation. Immediate temporary solutions were implemented to address the most serious fire hazards and the Fire Chief

The “EXIT” signs weren’t clear.

There was no evidence that the carbon monoxide and smoke detectors were tested regularly.

There was a “gas leak due to improper installation of the unapproved gas dryer.” (The city and a local natural gas provider soon corrected this problem.)

Imagine if there was an actual emergency in the building. A place like this would jeopardize the lives of the people inside because of these kinds of deficiencies. The Fire Chief gave Avell well over a month to fix the most serious of these problems, but follow-up checks on January 9 and 16 (in 2024) found “5 violations that had not been properly corrected.” Furthermore, on January 16, the Fire Chief found 20 people sleeping in cots or on the floor of the building.

The Police Chief later said Avell was only charged with the zoning violations after a “reasonable amount of time was given for both the tenant and property owner to fix the issues. Due to the safety of all involved the city moved forward with filing charges.”

That. Made. Sense.

Avell had plenty of time to correct these safety concerns and chose not to, which meant he was literally putting lives in danger by treating his business as a shelter.

The bottom line is that while Avell may have had the best of intentions, the people he took in were arguably in more danger at his church than they would have been in a shelter that had proper oversight… like Sanctuary Homeless Shelter next door:

There’s a sign for “Dad’s Church” in the window on the left side. The Sanctuary shelter is on the right. (Image via Google Maps)

Sanctuary “fully complies with the zoning code and fire code,” according to the city, and Bryan officials said they were in contact with the shelter about taking in the additional people “coming to Dad’s Place.” (First Liberty said the Sanctuary shelter was on Avell’s side.)

The city also suggested alternative places that Avell could set up shop so that his church could function as a homeless shelter—in a way that would be both safe and legal. But Avell rejected all those options. (First Liberty said Avell is in an ideal spot, able to take in overflow at the shelter and situated near a medical clinic.)

None of that even touched on another problem: Since May of 2023, the city said it had received calls about “inappropriate activity” at Dad’s Place concerning “criminal mischief, trespassing, overdose, larceny, harassment, disturbing the peace and sexual assault.”

The city’s press release also included documentation that Avell was taking in a sex offender—which arguably put the other people inside the building in harm’s way.

Ultimately, the city was simply trying to protect people. There are legitimate criticisms to make about whether officials are doing enough to house the homeless—and we should absolutely have those discussions!—but the charges against Avell seemed warranted.

If he wants to run a homeless shelter, then he has an obligation to make sure it’s run properly and safely for the sake of everyone he’s taking in—after all, this isn’t just something he did on one cold night. It was over the course of several weeks. The longer he neglects to take safety precautions, the more of a chance there is for something to go horribly wrong.

The upside to Avell’s fight was that it could pressure the city to build another shelter or take steps towards creating affordable housing. It’s hard to sympathize with his “good trouble,” though, when he’s opening defying sensible guidelines while creating new hazards for the homeless. His noble cause might make for good headlines… until a tragedy strikes due to his own negligence.

None of that stopped conservative attorneys like First Liberty’s Jeremy Dys from pretending this was Christian persecution. There’s too much fundraising to do off the claim that a secular government is going after a Christian pastor who just wanted to help the least of these. In fact, when a reporter from HuffPost raised valid questions about the gas leak and fire code violations, Dys refused to acknowledge the problems:

Dys on Friday said the city’s statement is “filled with half-truths and malicious innuendo designed to vilify the most desperate and downtrodden in their community.”

When earlier asked about the fire code violations, he dismissed them as a form of “lawfare harassment” against the church. Each time police visited, Dys said, they presented new “nit-picky” issues that he believes were designed by law enforcement to be impossible to keep up with.

Bullshit. The city didn’t make up new rules just to go after some pastor. The “nit-picky” rules involve things like making sure buildings have properly functioning smoke detectors.

Just because this is a church (inside a video arcade) doesn’t mean it’s exempt from fire codes. For the sake of the people they’re supposedly trying to help, First Liberty would be far better off fixing the violations than complaining about their enforcement. But that wouldn’t make for nearly as good a press release… which means the persecution claims aren’t going to stop anytime soon.

First Liberty later sued the city of Bryan on behalf of the video arcade church. The two sides got together and agreed to a compromise in early February of 2024: The city would drop all charges against Avell as long as he ended “residential operations” and got all the proper certifications and necessary permits.

The détente didn’t last long, though. Avell didn’t uphold his end of the deal, kept housing people despite the dangerous conditions, and so the city had to take action again. The city said in a press release, “We did not want to do this. We must do this for the safety of the people using the church, renters in space above the church and the businesses adjacent to the building… This is a very dangerous situation for the people that Dad’s Place has invited in to stay overnight.”

Mayor Carrie Schlade added that this dispute had led to “her own children being harassed and threatened on social media” along with other threats sent to city employees.

… Chris Avell and his attorneys have managed to turn issues of safety and complying with laws designed to keep people safe into a publicity seeking crusade about religious freedom. That’s not the reality. We have no interest in restricting anyone’s religious freedom. Here’s what I and the City of Bryan care deeply about: That the people using Dad’s Place church are safe and have all the protections afforded them by the law.

First Liberty then filed for a temporary restraining order to prevent Avell from being punished.

That didn’t work. A judge sided with the city—and correctly so—in December of 2024. In his ruling, Judge J.T. Stelzer wrote that the case was entirely about public safety, not religious persecution, and that “The desire for both ‘religious freedom’ and ‘public safety’ is not mutually exclusive and the two goals can and should easily co-exist.”

“Dad’s Place and Christopher Avell have numerous options available to address the fire chief’s concerns,” Judge Stelzer wrote, while it is “obvious” that the city would be blamed if a fire causing injury or death were to break out inside Dad’s Place and the city had made no attempt to enforce “its own regulations and fire codes.”

First Liberty appealed the decision and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals quickly issued a stay (blocking the judge’s earlier ruling until they had a chance to weigh in).

The conservative group was seriously arguing that because Avell’s religious beliefs required him to shelter those who need it, he should be allowed to ignore all zoning and fire regulations that prevented him from housing people:

The Church believes its mission is to provide a place of refuge and rest 24-hours a day, which includes the physical rest of sleep. The City has ordered the Church to stop providing that rest. The City’s actions therefore plainly burden the Church’s religious exercise.

In a fundraising appeal, First Liberty cited the “harassment and hostility” of the city and how officials were “abus[ing] their position to vindictively go after Good Samaritans like Pastor Chris. This can’t be allowed to happen in America.” There was no mention of how Avell was literally putting all those people he’s housing in danger. (None of that mattered to Ohio’s Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, who weighed in on behalf of the arcade-church.)

First Liberty also tried turning this into a full-blown Culture War battle by leaving out the pertinent details. That December, an attorney for the group, Ryan Gardner, wrote in the Columbus Dispatch about how city officials “put Ebenezer Scrooge to shame.”

Sadly, it appears nothing will deter the city from its conquest to criminalize compassion.

Indeed, it is unclear if even visits from the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future would cause the city to change course.

One can only hope that a higher court will intervene in this case, protect Dad’s Place and its congregants and provide a Christmas miracle to a church in desperate need of one.

There was virtually no mention of all the safety violations, no mention at all of the sex offender, and a desperate attempt to link what the city was doing today to how churches were allegedly persecuted during COVID because they couldn’t meet in person to spread a deadly airborne virus.

It led Mayor Carrie Schlade to issue a rebuttal in the same newspaper, essentially making the case for how the city has to enforce its own rules because public safety should matter to people. She also pointed out that the city has given this particular church plenty of leeway (that it didn’t necessarily deserve).

It is important to understand that when serious violations of the fire code are detected, typically the building is closed until the owner or tenant can get proper permits from the state to complete the work. If the business chooses not to comply, a fire inspector can and will bar the doors. We chose not to do this, specifically because we did not want to violate the church’s right to religious freedom.

The church was given the ability to appeal the fire code violations to the State Board of Building Appeals. They chose not to, essentially admitting they were not in compliance and had no intention of coming into compliance.

…

… it’s not a surprise that three separate courts have issued decisions rejecting Dad’s Place’s claims against the city.

…

As we continue through the justice system, our entire community continues to suffer at the hands of folks like Ryan Gardner.

This issue has always been and will remain one of public safety, as religious freedom has never been violated. After all, the church has not been closed by the city for a single minute over the last 14 months.

In other words, the city did everything it could to accommodate Avell’s religious wishes, but there were too many safety precautions being ignored and the city had an obligation to enforce its own rules. Just because Avell didn’t care about the safety of the people he was housing didn’t mean everyone else had the same luxury. He thought he was protecting people, but they’re the ones actually trying. Just because the city didn’t have all the resources it needed didn’t give officials the right to knowingly put homeless people in danger. They had an obligation to take rules seriously even when religious zealots ignored them to advance their own cause.

Avell and his lawyers were more interested in fighting religious battles—and draining city resources—than creating a shelter that would actually protect people in case of emergencies by following sensible regulations.

But now, unfortunately, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the conservative Christians.

In a ruling last month, a three-judge panel reversed Stelzer’s decision, and told him to reconsider his ruling with regards to the church’s religious beliefs. They said that this wasn’t really about creating a “homeless shelter” at all, but rather a question of whether the city was preventing Avell from practicing his faith.

… Here, appellant [Dad’s Place] maintains that its nighttime ministry is not intended to be a homeless shelter, but instead part of its religious duty to “offer a safe, loving place where it can welcome in the ‘stranger,” to ‘live among’ the Church as that person rests, recovers, and hopefully comes to know Jesus,” quoting the Bible in support for its beliefs. Appellant also maintains that its religious beliefs require it to operate its ministry in its current location because that location best meets the needs of those it serves. Finally, appellant maintains that prohibiting individuals from sleeping in its sanctuary would violate its beliefs. Appellee does not dispute the sincerity of appellant’s beliefs, and it is not for this court to say that appellant is somehow mistaken in its interpretation of its religious obligations or that its religious beliefs are illogical.

What about the fire code? Because Avell said it was too costly to install sprinklers, and that even if he had the money, installing them would require him to shut down the makeshift shelter for months. Either way, the sprinkler system requirement was a burden to practicing his Christianity and he believed he was being unfairly targeted.

The judges said that the fire chief has “significant discretion” over applying the code—some old buildings, for example, don’t have sprinkler systems but are “grandfathered” in and not penalized for it—and that he used his opinion to determine that the shelter was a “sleeping area” instead of relying on some hard and fast rules about what that looked like.

Let me repeat that: The fire chief said people were illegally sleeping in the building even though it wasn’t zoned as a “residential” facility. But here’s how the judges dismissed that argument, and it’s worth reading in full because of how much they have to strain to twist what the fire chief said:

Indeed, appellee [the fire chief] appeared to change his criteria for what constitutes a “sleeping area” throughout his attempts to enforce the fire code against appellant. Appellee’s January 2024 inspection reports specifically identified appellant’s provision of cots as creating a sleeping area. Appellant then removed the cots from the building, but in a subsequent inspection, appellee found a sleeping area existed despite the cots’ removal and issued another notice of violation. During his deposition testimony in the federal litigation, appellee explained that a sleeping area is not limited to the use of cots but instead one is created by “essentially using bedding materials, cots, pillows, or arranging furniture to create bedding areas.” In that same deposition, appellee maintained that under his personal understanding, he did not believe that the presence of individuals sleeping on the premises alone creates a sleeping area, but he struggled to articulate a clear delineation between different scenarios in which sleeping may occur. For example, appellee testified that a person sleeping while on the floor leaning against a wall or while sitting in a chair resting their head on a table, even if the person uses a pillow, would not create a sleeping area, but a person sleeping in a recliner chair could possibly create a sleeping area if the person did not “simply” fall asleep but was using the chair for bedding. Later, at the preliminary injunction hearing in this litigation, appellee again expanded his definition of a sleeping area, testifying that permitting an individual to sleep on the floor without any bedding or furniture whatsoever creates a sleeping area, and the absence of bedding, pillows, or furniture “did not change [his] understanding of the requirement for sleeping.”

What are we even doing here anymore. There were people sleeping in the facility. That’s why it’s being called a shelter. The fire chief pointed out that if a local business had a chair inside and some random customer sat down and fell asleep on it, the business wasn’t going to be punished. But if people are coming into this store specifically to sleep there, then yes, that’s a different situation and the business might be fined.

Instead of just admitting that, the judges chose to parse exactly how much proof was needed to determine if there was a violation of the law… even though applying that law is bound to be subjective, and this case is obvious.

In legal terms, the judges said the earlier court applied a “rational basis” standard when they punished the church, but the court should have applied a“strict scrutiny” test—a much higher standard—requiring the government to show they had no other choice.

It’s possible the lower court could still say the city had every right to implement its fire code the way it was doing, and that the city isn’t burdening Avell’s faith, but not before an even longer legal battle. In the meantime, the church gets to double as a shelter even if people who stay there could be in danger.

By the way, this only partially resolves one of the legal battles involving Dad’s Place. A federal lawsuit was settled over the summer, and a separate criminal case against Avell is still ongoing.

I fear that rulings like this one will lead more churches to cut corners under the guise of compassion, and they won’t realize how idiotic that is until they’re faced with an actual disaster that kills the very people they claim to be helping.

Avell and his lawyers want this to be a case about religious compassion, but it’s really about the breathtaking arrogance of an institution convinced that good intentions exempt it from accountability. Dad’s Place is refusing to meet the bare-minimum standards required to keep vulnerable people alive in case of emergencies. Compassion isn’t measured by how loudly you proclaim it, but by whether the people in your care can make it through the night without falling victim to preventable harm.

The church insists it’s offering sanctuary. The truth is it’s demanding the right to operate dangerously, without scrutiny, and without consequence.

And despite what First Liberty may argue, the city isn’t waging some war on Christianity. It’s doing the unglamorous, thankless work of trying to keep people safe using the resources they have available to them. It’s work that becomes much harder when religious leaders insist they should be able to operate with no responsibility to their communities.

Zoning laws, fire codes, and safety regulations exist because people have died when they’re ignored. The officials in Bryan understand this. Avell doesn’t—and he doesn’t care.

That’s what makes this ruling so dangerous. The Sixth Circuit has handed conservative groups a blueprint for bypassing local safety regulations entirely. If a church can declare that its religious beliefs require it to ignore fire codes, what stops another from dismissing food-safety inspections when launching a soup kitchen or medical licensing requirements when they want to heal the sick?

It shouldn’t take an emergency to understand why ignoring fire safety regulation could be a problem. Avell and Dad’s Place may think they’re defending religious liberty, but they’re actually defending the freedom to be reckless. That’s why the courts need to reassert that religious belief doesn’t entitle anyone to endanger the public.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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