Mr. Pickle’s closes Davis shop after franchisee compares Black Lives Matter to KKK

In the email to staff posted to Nextdoor, franchisee Mickey Mann railed against employees who had worn Black Lives Matter pins to the store, saying they forced a political issue into a nonpolitical space. Though he did not support the movement, he would have had the same reaction had they worn far-right paraphernalia, he said.




“The BLM is the flip side of the KKK. Their tactics are out of the Mafia play book (sic),” Mann wrote. “They are no better than some of the worst oppressive regimes in the world. Equal rights, fairness under the law, and any other buzz phrases they use are not their agenda. Oppression, turmoil and chaos is their agenda.”