The president of Sons of Thunder Motorcycle Ministries was cited Thursday night for defying a city order to stop housing people at its Denton homeless shelter, which officials ordered closed last month over concerns about the building’s safety and shelter’s legality.

DRC file photo/Al Key

Sons of Thunder Motorcycle Ministries received a citation from the Denton fire marshal's office on Thursday.

About a dozen homeless people were present at the East Hickory Street shelter at 10 p.m. when the city fire marshal’s office arrived for an inspection, said Ben Carswell, president of the Christian ministry.

“There wasn’t nobody sleeping when they came in, but they still fined me,” he said. “They said they would be back tonight [Friday] to fine me again if they [the homeless] were still there.”

City spokesman John Cabrales said the citation is a Class C misdemeanor and carries a fine of up to $2,000.

Meanwhile, city officials met Friday afternoon to try to determine how to best protect the safety and welfare of the people staying in the shelter, Cabrales said.

“It is the city’s position that we are charged with protecting the lives of our citizens, and that includes any of those individuals that are staying in this homeless shelter,” Cabrales said.

“Through inspections, we have determined that the warehouse contains numerous code violations, one of the more egregious being there is only one front door to this facility. Should a fire break out in the middle of the night, there’s a good chance that anyone asleep in the back of the building could perish in that fire,” he said.

The city will continue to issue citations to Carswell or any representative of Sons of Thunder found to be in control of that facility and allowing individuals to spend the night, Cabrales said.

Despite Thursday night’s citation, Carswell said he is still reluctant to force the homeless from his shelter, which the ministry originally opened in 2005 to house hurricane evacuees from the Gulf Coast.

“The people said they’d go outside to sleep on the sidewalk tonight,” he said Friday. “They’re going to have to do what they’ve got to do. If they go out there and sleep on the street, I’ll be out there to look over them.”

Last month, Denton Fire Marshal Rick Jones ordered the ministry to immediately stop accepting all-night guests after an inspection turned up fire code violations, including a lack of sprinklers and too few exits.

Carswell said Thursday the ministry was trying to comply with the order, but he admitted it had not yet found alternative housing for all of the tenants. The group also was working to correct the fire code violations, he said.

The admission came just two days after Jones issued the group a final warning to stop allowing lodgers at the warehouse, which isn’t zoned for a homeless shelter and lacks a certificate of occupancy allowing overnight lodging.

Cabrales said a meeting has been scheduled for next week between city officials and Sons of Thunder representatives, who have said they will propose to the city that they build a hotel on the site. A hotel is allowed by the current zoning for that building; however, there are numerous code issues that will have to be addressed and numerous modifications to that structure to convert it from a warehouse to a hotel, Cabrales said.

“In the meantime, these violations need to cease,” he said.

City officials are going to call a meeting of some Denton-area faith-based organizations to see if they can offer any type of assistance for the individuals staying at the shelter, possibly including temporary housing, until the shelter is brought up to code and people are allowed to legally spend the night, Cabrales said.

Denton Mayor Perry McNeill said the fire marshal is doing the right thing by looking after people’s safety.

“You can’t selectively enforce laws and ordinances,” McNeill said. “The fire marshal is charged with the protection of the people, and I think all he’s doing is what he’s supposed to be doing in any location in the city.”

Carswell said he blames top city leaders, not the fire marshal’s office, for what he views as the city’s resistance to the ministry’s operations.

“They’re going to fight us every way they can to keep us from staying there,” he said.

Some City Council members have questioned whether a shelter would fit in with the city’s plans for an arts corridor on Hickory Street, but the issue has not formally come before the council.

McNeill said he was unaware of any effort to actively block the ministry’s efforts.

“I have no evidence that that’s true,” he said. “I hope we’re uniformly enforcing our codes and ordinances.”

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com.