California sandwich shop closes after franchise owner compares Black Lives Matter to KKK
'You do not have arguments that can change my mind,' Mickey Mann wrote in reaction to staff showing support for Black Lives Matter
A California sandwich franchise has been shut down after the owner sent a racially incendiary email to staff condemning Black Lives Matter and likening the movement to the Ku Klux Klan, Fox News reports.
The Mr. Pickle’s Sandwhich Shop in Davis, California was closed down by corporate after the email made its way to social media that details how Mickey Mann, the former franchisee, feels about the movement against racism and police brutality.
The email was sent off after an employee came to the sandwich shop wearing a Black Lives Matter pin. In the message, Mann wrote that he does not support the activist group in red ink, the outlet reports.
“I never have and I never will. You do not have arguments that can change my mind,” he wrote.
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Mann stated that his Mr. Pickle’s restaurant for years “had a policy of no politics,” which included far right groups, MAGA hats and BLM, according to KTXL, a Fox-affiliate in Sacramento, California.
He said that staff attempted to “force and are continuing to force your beliefs on me,” adding that “the BLM is the flip side of the KKK.”
“Their tactics are out of the Mafia play book. They are no better that [sic] some of the worst oppressive regimes in the world,” he wrote.
Mann is now regretting that he sent that email.
“I was very, very wrong putting that in writing. It’s cost me my store,” he told KTXL.
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Mr. Pickle Sandwich Show posted an official statement on Thursday to announce the closing of the Davis, California, shop. The company also condemned Mann’s words as “alarming and painful.”
They also stated that should the location re-open, it would be under new ownership.
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