Md. mall owner admits error in immigration flap
September 21, 2010

The Associated Press

FREDERICK, Md. - The owner of a Frederick shopping mall has apologized for telling a merchant he was violating his lease by selling T-shirts supporting Arizona-style immigration enforcement, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The letter to James Kehoe, owner of the Antietam Gallery framing shop at Francis Scott Key Mall, was sent in error, said Judy Trias, vice president of retail marketing.

"It just didn't go through proper channels," she said.

The shirts bear the slogan, "Maryland stands with Arizona," beneath pictures of the states' flags. Kehoe said he started selling the shirts in late August to his mostly conservative customer base.

On Sept. 2, the mall's owner, Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, sent Kehoe a letter stating the shirts "may be regarded as inflammatory and/or racist," and that they violated the shop's lease terms limiting it to selling only prints and framing.

The letter also said the shirts may be considered "goods with derogatory or offensive political messages," another lease violation.

Kehoe disputed the claims in a letter he also sent to The Frederick News-Post. The newspaper's report Saturday on the issue helped launch a weekend run on the T-shirts, Kehoe said.

Kehoe told the News-Post he got an apologetic call Monday from R. Scott Petrie, PREIT's vice president of retail management.

"He said the letter didn't follow their normal vetting process, and he thought I had every right in the world to sell the T-shirt," Kehoe said.

Trias confirmed that Petrie apologized to Kehoe.

She said PREIT officials were not aware of the Sept. 2 letter until they received Kehoe's response late last week. She said it is not the company's policy to censor merchandise based on its political message.

"I think someone maybe got a little overzealous and thought that was what they were supposed to do," she said.

Immigration enforcement is a hot issue in Frederick County. Since 2008, it has been the only Maryland county participating in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program known as 287(g) that trains deputies to check the immigration status of people they stop for other reasons.

Sheriff Chuck Jenkins and several other county elected officials have expressed support for Arizona's recently enacted immigration-enforcement law, parts of which have been blocked pending court review. The blocked measures would require immigrants to obtain or carry immigration registration papers and require police, while enforcing other laws, to question people's immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally.

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