GORHAM—A long running dispute between an innkeeper and town fire inspectors over code issues was doused Tuesday at the Town Council meeting, but Matt Mattingy is not giving up.

Mattingly, owner of the PineCrest Inn, sought intervention of the town councilors in a move to transfer fire inspections at his inn from the town to the state. But, the Gorham Town Council voted against relinguishing town authority and also defeated a related item in Mattingly’s quest to renew a town victualer’s license needed to provide food and beverages.

“It closes the inn,” a glum Mattingly, a former town councilor, said after the meeting.

Mattingly and his wife, Amy, in 2005 bought the inn at 91 South St. that has been a bed and breakfast since 1993. The inn has seven guest rooms. The historic house was built in 1825 and is located in the South Street Historic District.

The haggle between Mattingly and town fire inspectors evolved from an inspection last year. Issues in recent months centered around replacing a kitchen stove hood with a commercial one and a lack of sprinklers in a so-called three-season room attached to the inn.

The case has involved a Superior Court appeal and a police report filed last month alleging an improper entry by the town’s fire inspector.

Mattingly and Gorham Fire Chief Robert Lefebvre argued their positions before the Town Council in Tuesday’s meeting before the board voted.

Mattingly told the council he had been threatened with jail. Lefebvre denied the allegation. “At no point we threatened to put him in jail,” Lefebvre said.

Town Councilor Paul Smith, saying the case had become “pretty” personal, favored Mattingly’s solution. “Why not step back and let the state do it?” Smith said.

Councilor Sherrie Benner thought there was some merit but not enough to transfer authority to the state. “It would set a bad precedent,” Benner said.

Along with Smith, Councilor Benjamin Hartwell, who sponsored the item on the council’s agenda, Smith voted to transfer authority to the state while four opposed the move. Councilor James Hager was absent.

“They proved their point, they want it shut down,” Mattingly said. “They don’t want the state to intervene.”

Later, in a 9 p.m. email to the Town Council, Mattingly asked for reconsideration at next month’s meeting and attached information to further support his case.

The upset Mattingly has his bed and breakfast up for sale and is asking $799,000.

Mattingly alleged in a police report filed on Nov. 16 that the town’s fire inspector during an inspection “entered into a tenant’s room without permission.” Mattingly claimed in the report “the inspection was supposed to be limited to common areas only and no notice was given to enter rooms.”

According to the report, police met with Deputy Fire Chief Ken Fickett and Fire Inspector Chuck Jarrett. “Deputy Chief Fickett stated that the inspection was performed in accordance with all fire codes,” the police report said.

The police report said the case is closed.

Lefebvre responded Tuesday to an American Journal call to the Fire Department seeking comment from Jarrett. “There will be no comments,” Lefebvre said.

Jarrett attended Tuesday’s meeting but wasn’t asked by the Town Council to speak.

The whole matter stems from a fire code inspection in 2015. Lefebvre said the state fire marshal’s office was represented along with the town’s inspectors.

In addition to the bed and breakfast business, Mattingly also at the inn had operated an upscale restaurant that seated 12 people.

Following the inspection last year, Mattingly shut down the restaurant, saying it wasn’t feasible to make structural changes to the building required to meet the codes cited.

“The Gorham Fire Department did not close his restaurant,” Lefebvre said recently.

Mattingly continued to operate the bed and breakfast. Then, in March of this year he received a notice of violation letter from Lefebvre citing codes that require a commercial hood over the kitchen stove. Mattingly told the American Journal in August replacing the existing hood with a commercial one would cost $7,000-$9,000.

So, Mattingly challenged the town’s ruling about the hood in Superior Court but  Judge Thomas D. Warren backed the town in a decision Oct. 25. “I feel the court’s ruling has vindicated us,” Lefebvre said recently. “We don’t ask for anything that can’t be backed up in the code.”

Gorham Fire Chief Robert Lefebvre, left, points to his stack of communications with PineCrest Inn owner Matt Mattlingly, sitting, since a fire code inspection last year. The Gorham Town Council rejected Tuesday night Mattingly’s request to transfer his inn’s fire code inspections to the state Fire Marshal’s Office.