A Tennessee woman has said a massive sign supporting Biden/Harris has hurt her business.
This from survivethenews.com.
According to a Tuesday report by WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Angie Monahan, who owns and operates Honey Blossom Boutique in Lenoir City, said:
I had so many people commenting saying, ‘I’ll never step foot in that business.’
She said:
This is how I make my livelihood. This is how my manager makes her livelihood, and I’ve spent seven years building this business. I can’t let one sign tear it apart.
Monahan leases space from the building’s owner, who put up the sign and has so far not spoken to the media about it. Monahan, however, has plenty to say.
She told WVLT:
Shopping is supposed to be fun and relaxing. It’s not supposed to be political.
I just don’t make a stance one way or the other. If someone wants to ask my personal opinion, I don’t mind telling them, but that’s not good business.
Although the area is a largely conservative part of Tennessee, Monahan said her feelings are not driven by partisanship.
She said, according to a New York Post report published Friday:
We don’t need politics in business. It brings down the whole vibe of downtown. I would feel the same way if it was a Trump sign.
She even put up her own sign in her shop windows, adorned with American flags with arrows pointing upward at the Biden-Harris banner declaring:
This business did not hang this sign.
She said she has asked the property owner to remove the sign, but he “adamantly, adamantly refuses to take it down.”
According to WVLT:
City officials said their hands are tied.
City Administrator Amber Kelso told the station:
There’s really not much we can do as far as our election sign regulation ordinance.
She explained:
We want to be careful because we don’t want to impede on someone’s constitutional rights for freedom of speech. That would go for whether it’s a Biden sign or a Trump sign or whether it’s some other political sign.
According to the Post, Monahan said she was puzzled at first:
I kept wondering why groups of women were intentionally walking beyond the store, and now I know why.
After she began speaking out against the sign, she said, she received so many “nasty” and “threatening” messages from Biden backers that she started carrying her gun.
She explained:
I do feel threatened. I’m protecting myself. I’m not parking in front of the store … I make sure I’m not followed home at night.
A customer identified as Janette Collier said she went to the store to show support as much as to make a purchase.
She told the Post:
I feel for her because the sign is imposing on her. She’s here to run a store, not a political campaign.
Final thoughts: What about a GoFundMe fundraiser to pay for an attorney and a lawsuit against the owner of the building for damages? Perhaps a Conservative entrepreneur will read about Angie Monahan’s predicament and come to her financial assistance.
Monahan may not have legal grounds to sue but tying up the building owner in expensive litigation may be a way to bite him in the ass.
