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Canfield city council defines the meaning of church
CANFIELD
Canfield City Council members recently enacted legislation defining what a church is to keep a shady history from repeating itself.
City Manager Joe Warino said the city “did not want to repeat history” when a hotel with a crime-filled past was bought in 2009 with the intent of acting as a Christian retreat.
According to Vindicator files, Evergreen Motel, formerly El Patio Motel, 485 W. Main St., and Canfield Colonial Motel, 7815 Akron-Canfield Road, were closed after Canfield police and undercover members of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force found evidence of prostitution in April 2009.
In November 2009, former hotels owner Art Klein, 67, of Akron-Canfield Road, sold Canfield Colonial Motel to a Syro-Russian Orthodox Catholic Church bishop, Bishop Timothy.
Klein had to sell the hotels as part of his conviction for promoting prostitution and conspiracy to promote prostitution.
One week after Bishop Timothy reopened the motel as a monastery and outreach facility, two people were arrested there on drug-trafficking and prostitution charges.
Now, Colonial Inn Motel is operated by Prime Suites and managed by Todd Cleavenger.
Despite those experiences, many city officials claim the ordinance to define a church or place of worship was merely to “establish a written definition of a church,” Warino said.
City Lawyer Mark Fortunato said the need to define a church or a place of worship stemmed simply from not having one.
“The genesis of this was that we went to look to at the definition of the church and there wasn’t one – and we needed to come up with one,” he said.
The ordinance passed states that a church or place of worship is “a place of assembly of a recognized and legally established religious organization whose primary purpose is to conduct worship services, ceremonies, rituals and related uses.”
Fortunato said the list is not exhaustive, and he is certain council would be happy to amend the ordinance as needed.
“We tried to capture or recognize the range of services that churches perform today,” he said.
Fortunato stressed the definition was done solely for zoning purposes.