As Memorial Day approaches, a holiday to remember and honor those who gave their lives while serving in the United States Armed Forces, a North Carolina city is suing an RV company for flying an American flag in honor of said veterans.
According to the Statesville, N.C officials, the flag flying above the Gander Outdoors building is too large and violates their city codes, which has resulted in a law suit against the company.
Gander RV, a Camping World location, has had the 40-by-80-foot flag flying outside their location as a salute to those that have served in the United States military.
Officials, on the other hand, seem more worried about enforcing the maximum flag size city code.
In October, the city of Statesville notified the RV company to tell them to take their flag down. According to WSOC, the city states that a flag cannot be more than 25-by-40 feet if it is flown 10 feet in distance from a highway.
When they refused to take the flag down, Statesville began to fine them $50 a day, which has now racked up to around $11,000.
“I don’t care if it goes to $500 a day,” Marcus Lemonis, CEO and chairman of Camping World and Gander RV said. “It’s not coming down.”
Lemonis told WSOC that Camping World has flags of such magnitude all over the country, and Statesville is the only city to have a problem with flying the American flag.
Lemonis added that the issue of flying the flag has become personal to him at this point, because of the love he has for it.
“My family has been car dealers, had been car dealers since the 1960s, and our key trademark was always flying our flag in our dealership in South Florida,” he said. “My family is largely immigrants of the country.”
This is not the first time the city has sparred with Camping World over the size of their flag. Back in 2015, Camping World was told they could not fly a flag of such size, in which they listened to the city.
But this year they are putting their foot down.
Ganders Outdoors is taking their case national, garnering much attention and launching a Change.org petition. The petition has already garnered over 100,000 signatures.
“This is about more than just the flag,” the petition reads. “This is about our veterans, military, and the men and women that have sacrificed for this great country.”
“They are the reason we fly the flag and they are the reason we will NOT take it down!”