Mel Simon who shut down Atlanta Tea Party, bans a conservative kiosk from his mall in NC

Melvin Simon, 83,  of Simon Property  Group 

Melvin Simon, the 147th wealthiest man in America and the owner of the Simon Property Group, has once again made news by refusing to extend a lease to a conservative kiosk in one of his malls in North Carolina, Concord Mills.

Simon also pulled the plug on the July 4th Atlanta Tea Party that was supposed to take place near his Gwinnett Place Mall.  

Melvin Simon has provided large political contributions to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, John Edwards, the DNC and many other Democrats and Democrat organizations. He was a major contributor to Barack Obama inaugural committee and has given at least $1 million to the William J. Clinton foundation. Simon's wife, Bren, personally donated almost $100,000 to various political candidates, was a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, and contributed to President Obama's inaugural committee.

A local NC news outlet, NewsChannel 36,  reports Simon Group banned the “Free Market Warrior” kiosk from their property after a letter to editor alleging racism was published in a local news paper, Charlotte Observer: “The author, recent UNC-Charlotte graduate Jennifer Ibanez, wrote:

'Free Market Warrior, a kiosk located adjacent to Bass Pro Shops, specializes in memorabilia embellished with pro-confederacy statements as well as those opposing both the government and President Obama. In addition, these products support ideas such as racisms, sexism, and even slavery. While freedom of speech is a Constitutional right it's difficult not to believe that something just isn't quite right here.
'I find it appalling that Concord Mills, North Carolina’s #1 visitor attraction, would condone such a message to be portrayed by their vendors and can't imagine how the outside visitors' perceptions of North Carolinians have been skewed by such an establishment.
'It’s hard to stay open-minded when such uncivilized and outdated ideas are endorsed on a daily basis. It's 2009; please, let's at least try to put this type of bigotry to an end.'

Ibanez told NewsChannel 36 she was so offended, she wrote the mall as well. She says a friend of hers also wrote in. Both threatened not to return to Concord Mills.”

The bumper stickers and clothing sold at the kiosk had political catch phrases on them, but were not racist, according to Loren Spivack, the kiosk owner. Some of it includes statements such as: "Impeach Obama", "Al Qaeda's favorite days: 9/11/01 and 11/04/08", "Work Harder. Obama needs the money", “My parents chose life”, “Global warming is a hoax”. He also sells IRS toilet paper, among many other things.

“'Nobody in that mall is selling anything from a conservative perspective. Plenty of people are selling things with a liberal perspective, with a pro-Obama perspective,' he said. 'Given that we are in America and not North Korea, we probably should have some stuff on the other side.'
Spivack says he is careful not to sell things that personally attack a politician and wants a fair exchange of ideas. "The material that I sell is about politics and ideas," he told NewsChannel 36. "It's all legitimate criticism."

If the issue is about causing offense, he told us (NewsChannel 36), the mall should police other stores. Spivack sent NewsChannel 36 pictures of several T-shirts and banners from novelty stores at the mall that were so crude we've chosen not to share them.” source 

The problem seems to be that whatever negative thing is said about Barack Obama it is immediately deemed as a racist slur even when the statement has nothing to do with Obama’s ethnicity. This concept was perfectly illustrated by Janeane Garofalo, an actress, who said that the Tea Party attendees are only protesting because they hate having a black man in the White House. She said she was surprised how many racists are still in America (the April Tea Parties drew over 100,000 participants).

One might wonder if the liberal left is really expecting people not to voice their concerns over Obama policies because of his color, or are they actually thinking that this is the only weapon they have left in the face of extreme spending that is so far clearly not producing the results the administration anticipated (unemployment numbers still rising, “misreading the economy”).

Whether Barack Obama is doing a good or bad job as President might be debatable. But it appears some people are not willing to even have the debate and are using some extremely low tactics to stop it from occurring. After all, there are very few things that play on Americans’ sensibilities more than being called a racist.

Simon Group, as it happened during the Tea Party controversy, did not return calls or emails.

sources: Atlanta Independence Tea Party NewsChannel 36 Forbes

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