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Gas station signs with gay slur causing controversy in LaGrange

By Rachel Stockman
By Rachel Stockman

LAGRANGE, Ga. — A sign with a gay slur on it is upsetting some customers at a LaGrange convenience store.
 
The owner said he put it up because he was sick of customers coming in with saggy pants. The sign calls customers a gay slur if they choose to wear saggy pants.
 
"I came up with that sign, nobody else did," said Anil Patel, who owns PCA Food Store on Hogansville Road. "Since that sign went up there, I don't see no pants down in my store, because they read the sign and they decide what they want to be."
 
"I couldn't believe they put something like that up," said customer Joshua Southern, who said he plans to no longer shop at the store.
 
"It doesn't bother me, not a bit. I have a girlfriend and I am gay," said Kerrie Williams, a clerk at the store
 
Other customers also supported the owner.
 
"Ain't nobody want to see all that. I don't want to see no grown man with they pants down," a customer told Channel 2's Rachel Stockman.
 
"It really offends me by them coming in, pants down. So it is not that I'm against them, gay people or anything like that, but just trying to prove a point. If you are going to come in my store, make sure you have your pants on," Patel told Channel 2's Rachel Stockman.
 
"There is other ways to deal with it. You could say, 'Pull your pants up. Nobody wants to see your butt,'" Southern said.
 
Late Thursday night, the owner's father pulled the signs down but Patel, who is out of town,  plans to come back first thing Friday morning to put the sign back up.

WSBTV

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