The Nashville gas station whose “actual literal Nazi” owner hosted a far-right hand-to-hand combat facility upstairs will now join a local chain of convenience marts, The Tennessean reported.
The Lewis Country Store, the restaurant and fill-‘er-up where the Southern Poverty Law Center discovered a white supremacist fighting gym in June, will become part of Tennessee’s Tri Star Energy’s holdings. Tri Star told the local paper that the sale will likely go through the day after New Year’s, and the facility will be “company-owned and -operated” going forward.
“Anytime we acquire a store, we fold them into our culture and run them as our stores,” an executive told The Tennessean.
That likely means the end not just of the white supremacist mixed martial arts ring, but also its notorious LED exhortations to motorists that they “Never Forget Benghazi,” “#Trump That Bitch,” and bring comedienne Kathy Griffin‘s head in exchange for a $50,000 reward.
These pro-Trump sentiments led gas giant Shell to dissociate itself from the store in 2016. The store continued to provoke with its defiance of local COVID-19 regulations in 2020, and its owner’s proud declaration that he is an “actual literal Nazi” after the SPLC report came out this year.
