'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 140

[VenkateshJavvaji]

I am receiving the following error when performing the below task:

TASK [tomcat : Copy default server.xml to host] ********************************
task path: /Users/user/GIT/branch/dir/tomcat/tasks/main.yml: line number
ESTABLISH SSH CONNECTION FOR USER: user name
SSH: EXEC ssh -C -vvv -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s -o KbdInteractiveAuthentication=no -o PreferredAuthentications=gssapi-with-mic,gssapi-keyex,hostbased,publickey -o PasswordAuthentication=no -o User=username -o ConnectTimeout=10 -o ControlPath=/Users/user/.ansible/cp/ansible-ssh-%h-%p-%r -tt server '( umask 22 && mkdir -p "$( echo $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1569261149.81-273140918605445 )" && echo "$( echo $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1569261149.81-273140918605445 )" )'
fatal: [playbook name]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failed": true, "invocation": {"module_args": {"dest": "/opt/tomcat/default/conf/", "src": "server.xml"}, "module_name": "template"}, "msg": "UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 140: ordinal not in range(128)"}

My task is:

• name: Copy default server.xml to host
  template: src=server.xml dest="{{tomcat_home}}/conf/"
  when: not _custom_server_xml.stat.exists

I am running ansible 2.0.0

NOTE: we are trying to upgrade our ansible playbooks from version 1.9.4 to the latest

Any help is appreciated