The Pajama Factory sits along on Rose street between Park and Memorial Avenues. KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette

The challenges for the owners of the Pajama Factory and their tenants in Williamsport, who are, according to the city Bureau of Codes, working in “unsafe” conditions after a fire and building inspection in July, just got more complicated.

As of Monday — just a day before they were slated to present their argument before a city appeals board, Mark and Suzanne Winkelman, owners of the Pajama Factory, were facing civil action taken by a Pajama Factory tenant in Lycoming County Court.

In the court papers, Susquehanna Legal Aid for Adults and Youth, through attorney Paige Martineau, asked for an injunction order from a county judge following a Friday meeting that was arranged by the Winkelmans and the Pajama Factory’s tenants.

The order alleges the Winkelmans “created a false narrative” by giving the media notice of a threat of eviction by the city Bureau of Codes. The couple also shared the letter with tenants asking for them to appear en masse at the appeals board hearing.

The building houses at least 150 tenants and about 200 people who live and work at the facility.

In the order, Martineau said the Pajama Factory is able to pay a fire watch service to remain compliant with the city Bureau of Codes, which, on July 22, issued the Winklemans “an order to vacate following a building codes and fire inspection where officials determined unsafe building conditions.”

Winkelman appealed the decision to the city Uniform Construction Code Board of Appeals, which is holding a hearing at 1 p.m. today at the Community Theater League, a hearing in which the Winkelmans, in their co-signed letter, implored Pajama Factory tenants and the community to attend, saying what the Pajama Factory faced was an “existential threat.”

The city completed a fire safety inspection and reviewed the required sprinkler report this past summer, according to Gary Knarr, city codes and zoning officer. It was determined the buildings were not safe in accordance with the code, in terms of a required fire protection system and required Winkelman to hire a fire watch for the safety of tenants, neighbors and public safety personnel until he comes into compliance for safety.

Winkelman told the Sun-Gazette the payments for a fire watch service were $1,000 daily and would soon result in the location for his dream for local artists and small business tenants going “bankrupt.”

The plaintiffs view this much differently.

“Like all landlords, it’s the Pajama Factory’s job to pay for whatever repairs are needed by codes in a given year,” Martineau argued in a petition for preliminary injunction in court. “The only way a tenant would be evicted, then, would be if the Pajama Factory broke both applicable housing and contractual laws and stopped paying fire watch.”

At the Friday meeting with tenants, Martineau purportedly, according to the civil action, told Winkelman: “You’re lying and telling the tenants they are at risk of being evicted when no one is at any risk of being evicted at all.”

Winkelman supposedly replied by saying, “Well, you’ll be evicted if I stop paying fire watch.”

The plaintiff argued that, as a landlord, Winkelman was “threatening to allow the property to become condemned without notice by stopping payments on fire watch, while spreading a false narrative in the media and in a letter to tenants that tenants were at risk of imminent eviction by the city.

At the Friday meeting, Winkelman was asked how much notice he would give tenants before he stopped paying fire watch. He allegedly said, “I don’t know,” according to Martineau’s complaint.

Moreover, Winkelman was asked at the meeting if tenants would get their security deposits back, and had the same answer, according to the document.

Meanwhile, the injunction request contends that Winkelman has declined to obtain a cost estimate of the work required to install sprinklers.

“We are working with a sprinkler company, VFP Fire Systems,” Winkelman said.

The landlord said he would have to raise rent by 50% to cover the cost of the sprinklers, according to the court document.

The plaintiffs asserted, however, that it would be unlawful and a breach of contract to raise rent by 50%, as all existing leases have built-in rent increases of 4 to 5% per year.

Essentially, the plaintiff argued the Winkelmans should have left the tenants out of their dispute with the codes office and reiterated to tenants that it would honor their leases and keep the doors open.

The plaintiff argued there are violations of the disabilities requirements and listed alleged examples.

The injunction order request asked the Winkelmans to turn over to the court proof of bank statements showing the tenants security deposits are properly accounted for within 10 days from the date of the order.