CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A judge on Tuesday ordered the closing of a consignment furniture shop in Parma Heights after finding the business was operating in defiance of the governor’s order allowing only essential businesses to stay open during the coronavirus pandemic.

Common Pleas Court Judge Brendan Sheehan granted a temporary restraining order closing Seconds City Consignment Home Furnishings on Pearl Road, after the business remained open after receiving multiple warnings from the board of health and a citation from Parma Heights police.

“Every day that Seconds City remains open, it creates an unnecessary risk of spreading COVID-19,” the judge wrote in a six-page order. “Moreover, Defendant’s recalcitrance undermines the badly needed social distancing required at a critical moment in history. No amount of money damages can undo the public-health harm that is occurring by failing to adhere to public health orders.”

Sheehan scheduled an April 20 telephone conference to determine whether to grant an injunction that would further prevent the business from operating while the stay-at-home order is in place.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Health filed for the emergency order Tuesday in what is the first instance of the board asking a court to shutter a business that is not in compliance with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Health Director Dr. Amy Acton’s stay-at-home orders for non-essential businesses.

Seconds City co-owner Brian Ginis told cleveland.com in a phone interview Tuesday from the store, which was open for business, that he believed his business was essential because it sold supplies for people to be able to work from home, one of the categories of essential businesses laid out in the stay-at-home order.

Ginis said he did not know the board of health filed for a restraining order, and that he would comply with it and close his store when he received it.

The board of health set up a hotline to receive tips about businesses that were not in compliance with the order, and received several phone calls last week complaining that Seconds City was still open, court records say. An inspector visited the store on March 27, and found it was “flagrantly open to the public and conducting business as usual,” according to the filing.

Ginis told cleveland.com that his employees pointed the inspector to the home-office provision in the governor’s order, and that the inspector gave them the “thumbs up” to continue operating.

The complaint says that the inspector allowed the store to remain open for a few days while the board determined what to do.

The complaint said that the inspector went back to the store March 31 and told the employees it needed to close. However, the inspector’s sworn affidavit says he called the store on that day and told an employee that the board had determined the store was not an essential business and that it needed to close.

That same week, Parma Heights police were called to the business and issued a misdemeanor citation for violating the governor’s order, the complaint says. The officers informed the employees there that they needed to close the store, the complaint said.

Ginis confirmed the officers’ visit and said they told him he should close.

The board’s inspector visited Seconds City again Monday and found it was still open to the public, records say.

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael Stewart, who field the request for the temporary restraining order on behalf of the board of health, wrote that Seconds City did not fall under any of the essential business categories, which include businesses that sell food and medicine, charities, gas stations and religious organizations.

“Although these measures are painful to millions of Ohioans, they are both necessary and lawful,” Stewart wrote. “Simply put, there is nothing so special about Defendant’s second-hand furniture store that justifies flouting a widely-publicized order to close.”

Ginis, who opened Seconds City in 1999 with his life-long friend Eric Moss, said they checked with the store’s attorney and agreed that, because they sold furniture that could be used to furnish someone’s home office, they were an essential business and remained open.

The order includes explicitly “businesses that sell, manufacture, or supply products needed for people to work from home” as essential businesses.

Ginis admitted that the portion of his sales that fall into that category is well below 50 percent, but said the order does not specify a threshold.

“Either you sell office-related equipment for home offices, or you don’t,” Ginis said. “If we’re speaking honestly and openly, we meet the governor’s order. We are essential. We should be open.”

Ginis told cleveland.com that the inspector did not visit the store on March 31, and that it only received a violation notice on Monday.

Ginis said foot traffic in the 9,000-foot showroom had been light. He said the store made 165 sales in the last 15 days, an average of about 11 sales per day. He also said after the board of health visited him on Monday, he put out a homemade petition for people to sign, saying they came to the store looking for home furnishings for their office. Ginis said he collected more than 60 signatures.

Ginis had to end the interview about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday when an employee for the board of health showed up with a copy of the order forcing his business to close.