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After a two-year legal battle, Pastor Chris Avell wins an appeal letting Dad’s Place stay open to the poor, exposing Bryan city officials’ selective fire-code crackdown on the church.

Dad’s Place will serve the poor once more in Bryan, Ohio.

Ohio Pastor Chris Avell just won an appeal allowing him to keep his church doors open.

A First Liberty (FL) case, the win follows a two-year legal fight, which included the pastor being handed a criminal conviction.

Open 24/7, the city’s most vulnerable often end up at Dad’s Place if the homeless shelter next door reaches full capacity.

The city’s war on the church began in 2023, when the Bryan City Council demanded the church comply with open-to-interpretation fire codes or close its doors.

Avell refused, and the Council pursued.

Shocked and dismayed, the pastor was subsequently slapped with “18 criminal zoning charges, middle-of-the-night fire inspections, and both criminal and civil fire code prosecutions.”

Targeted Campaign

The council claimed the church, which functions as a “stop, revive, survive” rest stop for the downtrodden and homeless, was functioning as a homeless shelter.

Battlelines were drawn between what constituted a “resident sleeping” and a person praying. The council initially won.

First Liberty’s exclusive summary of the case indicated that the council’s lawsuit was a targeted campaign designed to shut the church down.

For example, “City officials demanded that the church install an expensive fire suppression system.”

This is despite the city not requiring the same suppression systems for motels, most apartments, and senior citizens’ centres.

Apparently disregarding the strange, selective application of the codes, a judge criminally charged Avell in January for “fire code violations.”

The Dad’s Place pastor “was fined $200 and given a 60-day suspended jail sentence.”

Appearing to gloat, Mayor Carrie M. Schlade published a January 2025 press release doubling down and declaring victory.

“The City of Bryan,” she tried to clarify, “reiterates that no decision has been made to prevent Dad’s Place from operating as a church.”

“However, the residential operations of the facility must cease until proper building and fire code applications are filed and approved by the State of Ohio.”

In other words, the church must close down until it complies with the council’s (questionable) demands.

Also, define “residential operations”?

The church has no beds or any room for them.

Safety-Conscious?

In a separate statement made in December 2024 before the ruling, Schlade stated that her Council’s pursuit of Avell wasn’t about persecution. It was about public safety.

Writing a guest column for The Columbus Dispatch, Schlade said she felt it necessary to write a “rebuttal” to a First Liberty column likening her Council’s crackdown to Scrooge.

Schlade admitted to pursuing the church, again claiming that the heavy-handedness was “necessary for the safety of individuals utilising the church.”

This included, she said, “the safety of [non-church] residents of the upper floors, and the businesses in proximity to the building.”

Seemingly trying to discredit the ministry, the Bryan City Mayor cited the eyewitness account of a “registered sex offender” who claimed the church was “illegally housing individuals.”

Accusations of deceit for harbouring the homeless and hiding the bedding were also implied.

Schlade alleged that at least one early morning raid on the “doors are always open” church had found 16 people asleep on the floor and under tables.

Ultimately, it was the city bureaucracy that was being persecuted, not the pastor, Schlade appeared to argue.

Her council, she said, was simply upholding the law.

Definitions and Purpose

Overruling the initial judgment against the church, the Ohio Sixth Appellate District Court implied that Schlade’s defence was unconvincing.

For starters, the court said, the council lacked sufficient objective criteria in how it applied the fire code.

Put simply, the appeals court found that the fire code was applied subjectively.

The code allows for “wide discretion” in how infringements are determined, how, where and when the fire code is enforced.

This ties into the battle over distinctions and definitions.

“There is a distinction,” the appeals court judge said, “between a person who ‘simply’ falls asleep and one who intentionally creates a place to sleep.”

Citing First Liberty’s point, the judge said, the church has clearly stated that Dad’s Place’s purpose isn’t to provide a permanent residence — it is to live out the church’s religious duties.

If someone fell asleep during prayer, a meal, ministry, or a service, it would not change the nature of the church’s use of the building.

In sum, the council’s entire beef with the church effectively boiled down to fault-finding, and what constituted a bed.

An appeal to remove Pastor Avell’s criminal conviction is currently underway.