KOKOMO, Ind. — City officials have threatened to fine the owner of a recently opened strip club $2,500 a day on the grounds that it is too close to a chapel.

The city Plan Commission said could begin fining the owner of Ultimate Place 2 B after Oct. 14. St. Joseph Hospital’s MedOne clinic, which is run by a Roman Catholic order, has a small room used a chapel and qualifies as a “place of worship,” planning officials said.

That means the strip club violates an ordinance that forbids a sexually oriented businesses from operating within 500 feet of a “church or similar place of worship.”

Brad Hamilton, a lawyer representing club owner Dan Dumoulin Jr., said he would go to court to keep dancers at the club on the south side of the city about 40 miles north of Indianapolis.

“If the zoning commission has a dispute, then we’re going to address it,” Hamilton said. “I don’t believe the dancing will stop at the Ultimate, and if we need a court’s intervention, we’ll see it.”

Dumoulin owns three of the city’s six topless nightclubs. The zoning dispute centers on what qualifies as a church or religious facility.

“We can pretty well establish that it’s a place of worship — there are religious items in there,” said Glen Boise, the Plan Commission’s director. “Whether that’s similar enough to a church is another matter.”