People in one unincorporated Tarrant County community come up with an ingenious plan to force a fireworks stand out of the neighborhood.
Joe Sterling opened a big rig parking lot on Eden Road South near Mansfield on New Year's Day.
Sterling also owns a fireworks stand; he had placed it in his truck lot and had planned to invite people to pop off fireworks for a fee.
People who live near there worked tirelessly to stop it.
Kate Zimmerman says Fire Marshal Randy Renois told her it's perfectly legal, and he rattled off a few rules.
"One of them is you can't do it within 600 feet of a church," Zimmerman pointed out to KRLD news.
So that gave her an idea.
"I mostly just mouthed off, 'Well, what if we started a church?'"
Two residents who live within two football fields of the truck lot took her up on that idea, setting up makeshift churches on their properties.
Jay Hasbrouck calls his home-based church the Faith United Cowboy Church.
"So far, I have two crosses erected, and I'm building my third one," says Hasbrouck. "So I will have three crosses on the property that signify where the church is."
Neil Foreman calls his church the Church of Peace and Quiet.
"This is about me protecting my family, my home and my community," says Foreman.
"We don't have hardcore definitions of what constitutes a church," Zimmerman notes. "Even the Supreme Court refuses to codify it because it's the First Amendment."
Thus, the establishment of those two churches allowed the neighbors to secure a temporary restraining order against Sterling and his planned fireworks show.
"All of us coming from different directions and different backgrounds with different ideas -- this has been a tremendous community effort," Zimmerman says.
"A little group of people pulled together, and somebody listened," says Hasbrouck.
The temporary reatraining order has forced Sterling to move his fireworks stand about four miles south to a location on Rendon Bloodworth Rd.
"(It) kind of left me no choice to make a change due to the uncertainty of what might take place," Sterling tells KRLD news. "Unfortunately, there are going to be damages and things that are going to come to be because of the pre-planning with advertising and that sort of thing."
Neighbors say Sterling has been dismissive of their concerns with the truck lot, saying that Sterling told them if they don't like it, they can move.
Sterling says all the criticism that's come his way is unfair.
"They continually try to point out that I'm the bully," says Sterling, "and I'm the only one that's having to make changes and sacrifices in my business and livelihood."
While they're glad the fireworks stand is gone, neighbors are still fighting against the truck lot.
"We might have won this battle, but I'm sure the fights not over," says Foreman. "I really want to try and return back to what we had before."
Foreman says at least one good thing has come out of this ordeal.
"We really don't know our neighbors, and this has given me a chance to get to know my neighbors," he says.
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