It's a free country - or is it?

Show your American pride, but just be careful who sees it.

A man in Florida recently lost his job at a hotel for wearing an American Flag lapel pin on his shirt - the same pin he's worn every day for the past two years.

Sean May, 26, was canned from his front desk supervisor job at the Casa Monica hotel in St. Augustine on Friday after he refused to take off the little pin, which said he's worn to work every day for two years, local station News4Jax reported.

"I've actually gotten probably more compliments about it than any of the service I've actually done at the hotel, which is an interesting concept," May told the station.

The hotel sees it differently.  While they're okay hoisting a flag on a pole over the building, they're not okay with individual expressions of patriotism.

[The] employee handbook clearly states, 'No other buttons, badges, pins or insignias of any kind are permitted to be worn.' No matter an individual's national preference, political views or religious affiliation, it is a standard regulation which ensures equality for all (employees)," the statement said.

Or, maybe the recent change in ownership had something to do with it.

May said the hotel had recently come under new corporate leadership, and he suspected members of the new brass at its parent company, Kessler Enterprise, were responsible for the dress code crackdown.

 

 

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