Business owner upset with fence being trimmed down

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A fence has been trimmed down to make it comply with Houston city code, but that didn't appease the neighboring business owner.

The fence, until Friday morning, installed by Mount Corinth Church on its parking lot, had been 12 feet high. It was reduced to eight feet, which requires no permit. Arthur Smith, who leases business space on the other side of the fence, said it blocked a mural on the side of the building that houses a non-profit voter encouragement office, as well as his t-shirt shop.

Smith criticized the fence and the church pastor frequently on Facebook Live in recent weeks. Wednesday, during one of his broadcasts on the sidewalk in front of Mount Corinth, Smith was confronted by an off-duty HPD officer working security at the church. He refused to stop walking away. After a heated exchange between the two, Smith was stunned with a taser, and later arrested for allegedly resisting arrest. He remains in jail, held without bond, because of what the sheriff's office said was a warrant for a probation violation.

Koffey Smith, his wife, examined the fence, and said it still needs to be entirely removed.

"It still stands," she said. "I've always said, the wall got to fall."

She said a protest is planned near the fence Sunday morning at 10:30. Sunday service begins at Mount Corinth at 10 a.m.

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