British Woman Banned From Selling Mugs Because They Are Offensive To Muslims

56 year-old Tina Gayle has been banned from having a stand in a town centre because she was selling ‘offensive’ Knights Templar coffee mugs.

The ban was put into effect after a complaint was made to the Loughborough town council that she was selling offensive memorabilia and the council subsequently asked her to remove the mugs from her stall.

Gayle however refused to do so and was thus outrightly banned from selling at the town centre where her stall was situated. Speaking to MailOnline, she said, “It’s very unfair. The council told me about the complaint about the mugs and them being offensive to Muslims. They asked me to remove them. I said that was ridiculous and told them “no”.

“They then printed off a letter on Friday at 4pm and said I’m banned. You’re meant to have three written warnings before expulsion and they didn’t do that. It was apparently something so bad they were banning me completely.” Adding that, “they have only given me three days to appeal which is nowhere near long enough.”

Gayle, who also sold rare books in her Loughborough town stall for the past three years, further explained that the complainant found the Knights Templar mugs she sold offensive because the Templars were known to have “killed Muslims in the crusades 710 years ago.”

“The Knights Templar were fighting monks, used to protect pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem. They stopped them being robbed…they weren’t an army who were killing.”

This is however not the first complaint to be made about the memorabilia sold in Gayle’s stall. She had previously been warned by the council for selling Nazi memorabilia.

A spokesperson for the council told MailOnline that a complaint had been received in August regarding offensive contemporary Nazi memorabilia being sold at Gayle’s stall. In keeping with the council’s polict to ensure that items sold at the market do not cause public offence, a threat to safety or that could bring the market into disrepute, Gayle was consequently asked to remove the mugs from her stall.

The spokesman further revealed that Gayle has the right to appeal the council’s decision to ban her from the market.