By Russ and Tiña De Maris
Statesville, North Carolina, city officials and Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis have come to terms. Statesville gets the money, Lemonis keeps his flag.
After a closed-door session prior to last Monday’s city council meeting, an agreement was completed that ends a long fight over an oversized U.S. flag that Lemonis had flown over the Gander store in the North Carolina city. Months back, Gander raised a 40′ by 80′ American flag, in violation of Statesville’s ordinances, which most recently limited flags to a maximum of 25′ by 40′. Code enforcers approached Gander about the violation, and the company refused to take the flag down. With fanfare, Lemonis said he’d rather go to jail than to come into compliance.
The majority of city counselors were just as entrenched. Last June they voted down a proposed ordinance that would have allowed larger flags. When they did, the council came under fire. In a now-removed media release, Statesville’s mayor wrote, “People from all over the country have jumped on this issue and called us names I can’t repeat. When our community’s efforts to conduct business in an orderly, lawful manner begins to hurt our businesses, then it’s time to put a stop to it.”
Perhaps the settlement will finally put a stop to it. Lemonis’ company will pay fines for the unlawful flag flying to the tune of $14,350, in addition to $2,000 in court costs. For its part, the city will rewrite its flag ordinance, allowing Gander’s 3,200 square footer, by specifically allowing the area where Gander’s store is located to have the larger flag.
In a Tweet, Lemonis said the city was a great place, and even offered to donate another huge flag to be flown over downtown Statesville. Just how that idea will fly with the city council is yet to be seen.
So, asks RVtravel.com editor Chuck Woodbury, was this about patriotism or publicity? Read his thoughts.
It’s long past the time this country got over their nonsense of “American exceptualism” , flag and religious symbol worship. No, the bigger the flag, the bigger the religious symbol the bigger the more likelihood someone is trying to take your rights away and push their narrow minded agenda on you.
Huge flags don’t represent good citizenship any more than huge crosses represent good Christians!
First of all, it is “American exceptionalism”, not “exceptualism”.
Secondly, the USA is exceptional if only because this nation was the first to establish its own form of constitutional government eliminating the concept of having a king who ruled by divine right. I would say that was exceptional. We paved the way for previously unheard of concepts such as “No taxation without representation”. Exceptionalism does not mean perfectionism, but if you study world history prior to the establishment of our nation you will find it to be exceptional in many ways.
Your commenting on it, are you not!
Let’s analyse, Mr. Lamonis won big and here is why; 1. He has EXCLUSIVE rights now in the Statesville NC area in perpetuity, to fly the biggest American flag for the mere sum of 16K. 2. Other than flag replacement costs, that is very smart advertising for the money spent. 2. The title of the article should read; patriot wins court battle, pays fine, gets law changed, to in fact, fly American exceptualism for all to see.
Good for you Marcus, you stuck to your guns, and won.
Bily Bob, so the big flag means he is more patriotic than if he flew a smaller one? I think most people would say flying a slightly smaller, but legal flag would have been no less a patriotic act. Why did he need the huge, illegal flag to show his patriotism? You say it’s “smart advertising.” Billy Bob, I hate to tell you but using the American flag for personal gain is not patriotic: it’s actually a slap in the face to every American, especially veterans who didn’t serve our country just to have this man fly a giant flag to make more money!
Not only is it using the flag to promote personal gain (why do car dealers always have the biggest flag in any town, flown 24/7 in all weather? Patriotic? Not hardly!) but Lemonis has also reminded us again that America is the Land of the Golden Rule. He who has the gold, rules.
With his money and lawyers he successfully beat down a city government’s rules, and even managed to get a special exemption for himself that NO ONE ELSE IN THAT TOWN can enjoy… unless they, like Lemonis, have the gold and the brass to defy the council and force a “special exemption” for themselves. Disgusting. It’s actually a perversion of American principles. Are people too heedless to see what happened here? I guess so.
Gray, this argument will fade into obscurity, but the Red, White and Blue will fly, and after a year, nobody will know the story. To your point “in all weather” flag editcate is; the flag can be flown in all weather, even at night, as long as a light shall shine upon her. God Bless this most powerful nation.
Chuck, respectfully I disagree. There are literally hundreds of these enormous flags flying around the country at various establishments. I understand that Marcus bashing is a sport in there parts, but putting that aside I see it this way.
To Marcus’s patriotism, I cannot speak. As to the illegality, I can. He is now in compliance, so much so, that only he can fly that size flag. I suspect, although I do not know, that the settlement made by the local Stateville govt folks, was the best they could do under circumstances. Otherwise, they would have stuck to their guns, so to speak, and challenged him further. But instead, gave him exclusivity for his establishment for 16 grand. Neither you or I will probably ever know, what the inside baseball was on this, but, I for one, NEVER look at an American flag, on a flagpole ANYWHERE and think ” oh, that place is unpatroitic”.
RIGHT ON!
Except on June 14th perhaps!
Other countries are available to you.
But it does give you pride to see how magnificent a flag of this size being flown to honor those who gave the ultimate price and to say “Thank you Veterans”.
I have left two different comments on this subject and both of them were removed (CENSORED). I am a paid subscriber to this newsletter but will not renew if this is the way you do things. I saw nothing wrong with my comments. I deserve an explanation.
Ed
Ed and/or Robin. I explained why this happened in response to your other email. Keep in mind our staff is on the west coast and sometimes we do not get up at the crack of dawn on weekends (even though we often work on those days to keep up with correspondence). So any comments that are left by readers in, say, the Eastern time zone, for moderation may sit there at times waiting for one of our early-riser staff members to get up to approve them. I got up at 6 this morning to do just that, even though I really would have liked to have stayed in bed a little longer. We appreciate your financial support. Thank you.
Gee, I got the boots too. Maybe I’m mistaken, but jury is out.
While I am as patriotic as anyone (VietNam combat veteran) I also know that marketing folks use the American flag in their places of business because studies have shown that it will increase sales. I seriously doubt that Marcus Lemonis flies such a huge flag out of patriotism. Have you ever noticed that the biggest flags in almost any town are flown over car dealerships?
Using various tactics to entice buyers isn’t just limited to Camping World … ever notice stores and people who use their “Christianity” to proclaim their honesty? I make every effort to NOT do business with people who try to subtly CLAIM they are better than “those other people” for any reason whatsoever.
Yes, i have noticed that. Have you ever noticed that Ford, Chevy, Dodge proudly say made in America. Talk to a Chevy worker and ask him where the rice burners have to park in the employee parkjng lot.
Everbody has an opinion on what Mr. Lemonis was thinking. Until you sit down with the gentleman and ask him, your opinion is pure conjecture. Wouldn’t you say!
The fact that marcus lemonis won the flag issue, does NOT mean I am going to buy anything from Camping World.
Everyone should simply stay away from Camping World and DON’T enrich marcus lemonis’ wallet with one more penny!
I wonder if Lemon Lemonis thinks he’s improved his image by the wrapping oneself in the flag tactic. Maybe. But I wager it’s fewer than he thinks. One of his employees complained to me that he could pay his employees a little more rather than the $10,000 dollars a day fine he was incurring at the time. Just saying ,,,,,.
Ray, the fine was $50 a day, not $10,000.
I originally thought that this story was just a publicity stunt, and it still may be, but I recently spent a month in Cedar Rapids, IA and found another branch to Lemonis and his huge flags. There is a Gander Outdoors store there that is one of the stores that is closing down. It has one of those huge flags and it was torn and tattered. I am a veteran, and knowing about this story in NC, so I called the local VFW to see what needed to be done and if they could handle it since I was there for a school. The VFW said they could take care of the disposal, but they couldn’t do anything with the store bringing it to them. I went into the store and spoke with someone about getting the flag taken down, but since they were busy doing all their going out of business stuff I didn’t expect it to come down until they were closed. To my surprise within a few days that huge flag had been removed and replaced with another huge flag. The reason this surprised me was they would have had to hire someone with a huge cherry picker to go up and switch out the flags, and they did it even though they were going out of business.
RIGHT ON … just because you think it doesn’t mean it’s true — and this man’s story proves it.
Shows respect. Marcus I’m sure is a proud American. Good for him, he now can fly the stars and stripes in Stateville, NC because he had the code changed.
This had nothing to do with patriotism, I doubt Lemonis even knew about it until the lawsuit. This was a PR move for him and nothing more. I like the big flag, but let’s not mistake his motive.
If your theory is correct — then the city played right into Lemonis’ game … who cares what his real motive is — enjoy the flag or dislike it and don’t look there are far more important things to worry about … UNBELIEVABLE that we are even discussing this.
I do believe that Lemonis is very patriotic to our country. His family came to the USA when he was a child and they all worked very hard to become citizens. They had very little money, and he started working when he was young, and is a self made millionaire.
Maybe he can have an American flag bedspread in his prison cell when he’s convicted of insider trading and lying to investors. In today’s political climate maybe being a con man is a requirement.
How dare you use the American Flag as your soap box
How dare the city council tell free citizens what flag they may or may not fly.
The Lemonis’ company will pay fines for the unlawful flag flying to the tune of $14,350, in addition to $2,000 in court costs. For its part, the city will rewrite its flag ordinance, allowing Gander’s 3,200 square footer, by specifically allowing the area where Gander’s store is located to have the larger flag. – See there the key points are that…… (1) Gander will still have to pay the $14,350.00 fine, plus the $2,000.00 Court Costs anyway, – and – (2) The only place a flag above what the city allows in size will be only upon the very small space upon Ganders properly, as nobody else will ever be able to display or fly such a large size flag themselves without going through the same hassles as Gander has had to go through. – Yes, Folks, Once again, it’s all about the huge amount of money that the city can force out of the citizen, and not about the flag, and the patriotism of the flag and/or its owner. The city should have to eat those fines, and the re-zoning for the larger flags should be city wide and not just upon that one small spot. Very few if any people would ever fly such a huge flag anyway, but its more just the idea that they could do so by law if they so chose to do so, and wanted to do it. So, in essence overall, the city still won.
Could McDonalds then fly a big ol’ McDonalds flag, and next door Taco Bell do the same? Just asking.
It is disgusting that a town or any local government can legally limit the size of the National flag that they are located within.
WHO CARES about the size of the flag — aren’t there more important issues to talk about than the size of the flag? Get over it!
Marcus Lemonis is a Trump hating liberal. Don’t let him fool you, remember his comment during the last Presidential campaign, that Trump supporters are NOT welcome at his stores.
Not true, do a little research.
End of the day, it was all about the money for the city. They took it as a part of the deal. On the other hand, the assumptions of Lemonis’ intent for flying the flag, are just that, assumptions. Perhaps a little research would help tone down the rhetoric.
I’ll have to keep Statesville, NC in mind as a place to AVOID with my RV if it requires legal action to show one’s patriotism. I’m sure I can find other, less onerous places, to visit and spend my travel dollars in.
Interesting in that I was in Statesville last week visiting a relative. I had arranged to have Gander RV diagnose a couple problems with my entertainment system. It was only upon arrival did I know that they were really Camping World. I must say that the Service Writer (C.J.) and the technician (Dave) were very professional and the technician knew what he was doing. I did not notice or see the flag in question.
As a Canadian looking in on this, I thought there were bigger fish to fry. I do know one thing, you’d have to spend a lot of money running down a flag flying from a business as big as that on the Gander operation. In fact to find any flag flying on a Canadian business is not going to be common. We’re just not as flag waving as our American friends. Bravo to you all, and Bravo to Lemonis for fighting this and winning. Do I shop at Camping world, do I patronize any Democrat or Liberal anything? – not on your life.
There is a huge flag flying at the Cliffs Hotel here in Pismo Beach, CA.
The hotel is right off the 101 and always gives me a sense of pride and patriotism every time I drive by. If they were flying a “Cliffs Resort Flag” or something similar, I would object. I think the people living in Statesville should be the ones who determine if the flag stays or goes and not some subjective politician(s). I am sure that the public would overwhelmingly support the large flag, those who died defending her and all that it represents. You might not be a fan of Lemonis, and I’m not, but I would certainly appreciate seeing Old Glory waving in the blue sky if I lived in Statesville.
Good. I don’t like the man, but enough with flag bashing.
Our nations flag is NOT “illegal”. The bias is just never ending.
“wins his illegal flag battle”