Kenosha, Wisconsin has seen its fair share of conflict in a past few days. With Black Lives Matter riots breaking out after an unarmed Black man was shot by a police officer in the town, there has been chaos in the area. Gravity Gaming Lounge did not escape this outrage either, and the store took to Facebook update its community.
Over the past three nights, Black Lives Matter protesters have gathered to bring attention to the incident, but violent events have continued during this time. People have been injured during these protests, and stores have been looted by those who are trying to take advantage of the situation. Just as many others, the gaming lounge in the town did not make it out of the chaos unscathed and used Facebook to left people know the extent of the damages.
Gravity Gaming Lounge confirmed via a Facebook post that its establishment was also the target of looters during the time when the riots were going on. According to the post, all of the gaming equipment had been stolen from the store and the place itself was left in shambles. The gaming lounge went on to say that it was damaged to an extent that it would not be able to recover, especially after trying to come back from the lack of revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic. To stay in business, Gravity Gaming Lounge would have to replace all of the gaming consoles as well as the equipment that was stolen on top of repairing the facilities, which the retailer has to do regardless.
Gravity Gaming Lounge confirmed that it would be shutting down after the incident, also citing the extent of the damage after the employees calculated what was taken. According to the Facebook post, looters had stolen 16 controllers for the Xbox One and PS4 consoles, the consoles themselves, two Nintendo Switches, two complete PC set ups as well as a collection of games worth around $10,000. The lounge also found that eight of its monitors were damaged so badly that they would have to be completely replaced and that all of the televisions were either stolen or destroyed by the looters. In total, the damages to the gaming lounge's equipment alone was calculated to cost $20,000.
Gravity Gaming Lounge thanks its community for coming together to support the venue during this time and says that it will not currently be starting an official GoFundMe to raise funds to combat the cost of these damages. It is unfortunate to see locations for great gaming communities getting caught in the crossfires of these difficult times. Hopefully the gaming community in Kenosha will find another place to gather once it becomes safer to come together to enjoy games in the same location. For the time being, it seems that the Kenosha gaming community will have to stay in contact virtually as they continue their gaming efforts.