The owner of a Trump-themed souvenir shop outside Chicago is facing off with local officials who she says are targeting her store with code violations for political reasons.
The Trump Truth Store in the suburban Village of Huntley, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, sells an array of “Make America Great Again” merchandise, patriotic apparel, and anti-authoritarian attire. Stationed outside the store’s entrance is a life-sized inflatable of President Donald Trump. The beloved, cartoonish blow-up of the 47th president, his lips pursed as if he were mid-quip, has helped the Trump Truth Store become a staple among conservatives in the community.
It’s also the subject of a brewing legal battle.
Lisa Fleischmann opened the Trump Truth Store in a small shopping strip off Route 47, a largely rural state highway running through Huntley Village, in December 2023, attracting a steady flow of Trump supporters from all over town and beyond.
A year and a half later, Fleischmann’s increasingly popular Trump Truth Store could be closed down — or at least kicked out of the commercial property, known as Huntley Towers — over building code violations and citations related to local sign regulations.
According to McHenry County Circuit Court records reviewed by the Washington Examiner, the storekeeper, now facing four claims of ordinance violations and the threat of eviction, is accused of violating village signage rules and breaching multiple municipal building codes in a civil case brought by her landlord, Ricky Lynfield.
Over the past six months, the Village of Huntley has hit Ricky Lynfield with several tickets concerning code infractions that Fleischmann allegedly committed. Ricky Lynfield, in turn, is threatening to evict the Trump Truth Store’s owner and operator for repeatedly refusing to abide by the company’s compliance requests to take down her outdoor decor of pro-Trump paraphernalia.
The plastic POTUS look-alike and its backdrop of Trumpy flags, signs, and banners all violate the village code, according to Huntley authorities, who are arguing that their placement blocks the public right-of-way.
Fleischmann said she’s sticking up for small businesses, “the little guy,” against unfair and unequally applied rules that the town selectively enforces. Fleischmann said she thinks village officials, who she said “might not be fans of Trump,” are receiving a flood of phone calls from people who don’t like Trump either, spurring them to take action against her.
That’s why the Trump Truth Store was singled out, Fleischmann said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “They say it’s not political. However, everything else leads to it, because they’re only getting mad at me.”
She noted that many other businesses along Illinois Route 47 are able to place products outside, pointing to big-box retailers like Walmart and Ace Hardware, which had “pallets and pallets and pallets of malt” in the parking lot all winter.
The landlord’s lawyer Joe Gottemoller, formerly a GOP precinct committeeman, noted that a permit is typically mandatory for these sort of “sidewalk sales” put on by the businesses Fleischmann mentioned.
“This is not about President Trump,” Gottemoller, a Republican who is also a member of the McHenry County Board, said of the eviction filing to the Washington Examiner. “This is about a woman who’s decided she doesn’t have to comply with the local laws.”
In a statement sent to the Washington Examiner, the Village of Huntley said the sign ordinance is “intended to preserve and enhance the village’s appearance, ensure that signs are compatible with surrounding land uses and buildings, and protect public safety.” There are no other businesses
in Huntley with signage similar to that of the Trump Truth Store, the statement said.
“Her sidewalk has got so much stuff that there’s no place for people to walk on it,” added Gottemoller.
Fleischmann, on the other hand, said that pedestrian traffic is not obstructed in any way by the items in question. “I have people with wheelchairs that come in here every single day,” Fleischmann countered, “and no one has ever said anything that they couldn’t get through.”
For Fleischmann, the eye-catching Trump inflatable is a nonnegotiable, along with the thick, vinyl banner adorning the storefront. Both bring in business, she said, the former providing a fun photo op and the latter letting patrons know that the Trump Truth Store is there.
Huntley officials said they’ve attempted to work with Fleischmann for the past year to install
a permanent sign that complies with the village’s sign ordinance. Fleischmann, however, “insists on maintaining signage in violation of the ordinance,” their statement said.
Fleischmann stressed that she does not fault her landlord, who appears to be caught in the crosshairs, for the legal feud. Rather, the village officials are to blame, she said.
“He’s very young,” Fleischmann remarked. “I think he’s definitely being bullied. They’ve just been harassing him so much. He just doesn’t know what to do.”
Fleischmann said the village has been calling him nonstop in what she sees as an intimidation campaign. “It’s not his battle,” she said. “It’s my battle.”
Gottemoller said his client has no particular interest in forcing Fleischmann to vacate the premises.
However, “she’s left him with absolutely no choice but to evict her,” he said. “He has no desire to evict her. Just go get a sign permit, for crying out loud.”
While she could move to another site, which she intends to do anyway once this ordeal is over, or even operate online, Fleischmann acknowledged, the physical presence of her brick-and-mortar locale is integral to her mission.
She had set up the Trump Truth Store in hopes of fostering a sense of community in Huntley and igniting much-needed dialogue about issues important to Illinoisans who otherwise would not openly express their political beliefs for fear of backlash.
As a supplier of pro-Trump garb, the shop encourages Trump supporters to sport such swag proudly, signaling to the “silent majority” that they are not alone.
Fleischmann’s venture has received an outpouring of support from fellow conservatives. “Freedom of commerce, freedom of expression. No more shall we hide,” one Yelp reviewer in nearby Aurora wrote.
“Everybody’s afraid to show which side they’re on,” Fleischmann said.
Fleischmann, a self-described “Trumplican” and three-time Trump voter, has been met with pushback from political opponents since setting up shop.
“The minute I opened my doors up,” Fleischmann recalled, “they were walking into my store, going, ‘Who gave you permission to be here? What board member approved this?’ I’m like, I don’t need a board member to move my store. And they could not get that through their heads.”
More recently, a man sent her a picture of his genitalia, she said.
A bench trial in Fleischmann’s eviction case is scheduled to take place on the morning of June 11 before Judge Suzanne C. Mangiamele, who ran as a Republican when she won the 2024 judicial circuit race.
There is a status conference on Tuesday to show the court that Fleischmann has indeed found legal counsel: Trump-aligned attorney David Shestokas, who is offering his services pro bono. In 2020, Shestokas was part of the Lawyers for Trump team in Pennsylvania, where he organized ballot-processing observers, conducted provisional ballot hearings as the president’s representative before electoral boards, and collected affidavits regarding election irregularities.
Regardless of the case’s outcome, Fleischmann envisions relocating to a larger retail space, a dream she had prior to this standoff. There was never a need to launch legal action against her since she had “every intention” of moving out of Huntley Towers, Fleischmann said, so the litigation seems senseless.
“You know how many kids love this store?” Fleischmann said. “If they had a choice between Chuck E. Cheese and the Trump store, so many of them would pick the Trump store.”
