NJ Gym Owners Defy Gov, Kick Open Doors [VIDEO]

The Cherry Hill Courier Post reports:

A gym that was closed by the state reopened with a bang Saturday morning. The defiant owners of Atilis Gym kicked in plywood panels that had sealed the entrance to their Browning Road business since Monday, drawing cheers from a group of flag-waving supporters.

“What really upsets me is it had to come to this,” said Ian Smith, a partner in the gym who said a long-running dispute with the state over pandemic restrictions had become “personal.” He urged his listeners to resist government-ordered shutdowns like those imposed by Gov. Phil Murphy during the pandemic emergency.

Authorities closed the gym before dawn Monday, when they charged Smith and his partner Frank Trumbetti with contempt and disorderly persons offenses. The two men were living in the gym and had removed a front door in an attempt to foil a state lockdown.

Last month a New Jersey judge ruled that Gov. Phil Murphy had the authority to order the gym to be closed. In June, far-right extremists and militia members joined a protest outside a gym which was covered live by Fox & Friends, whose producers dispatched host Pete Hegseth to the scene.