(This story was updated to add accurately reflect the most current information.)
Milton’s Gulf Coast Gun and Outdoors reopened Wednesday morning after much of the store’s inventory was seized for allegedly failing to pay back a business loan.
Owner Chris Smith released a video to social media to explain what he said happened on Tuesday when Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s deputies served a court order by a judge allowing Lakeland West Capital 48 LLC to repossess between $600,000 and $1.2 million worth of Gulf Coast Gun’s inventory after Smith defaulted on a $100,000 loan, which has ballooned to over $550,000 with interest.
Smith took out the loan in May 2021 through Regions Bank and when he defaulted and failed to repay the loan, they in turn sold it to Lakeland West in November 2024, according to court documents. The note matured in June 2024.
Lakeland West alleges in a civil court filing that Smith refused to answer calls or emails regarding repayment of the loan.
Court documents say that the current note as of Dec. 9, 2024, was $552,834.71 which continues to accrue interest at a rate of $177.58 per day until the conclusion of the civil court matter.
However, in his video, Smith claims he had been paying his loan off until Regions sold it to Lakeland West, who then decided to raise the price of the loan.
Defaulted loan: SRSO confiscates Gulf Coast Gun & Outdoors inventory after owner fails to pay back loan
“(Regions) sold this loan because they didn’t want anything to do with guns, and a lot of banks don’t want to do anything with guns,” Smith said. “That’s why they sold the loan, it had nothing to do with us paying back.”
In a statement Regions Bank gave to the News Journal, they said, “Any claim that Regions made a decision based on guns or politics is not true. Out of respect for the client’s privacy, we will not discuss the specifics of any individual loan or account.”
“But we can share that, as a normal course of business, if any bank has a loan where there’s an issue with repayments or a default, that bank can take several steps to try to work the issue out,” the Regions statement said. “Ultimately, the bank may make a financial decision to sell a loan to minimize its losses.”
Smith said that Lakeland West attempted to take all of his inventory, but he claims he prevented that from happening by “sitting down” and “talking with them,” saying they had more inventory than the loan was used to buy.
“I had to liquidate some of my own personal assets as quick as possible, and I had to come up with an agreement with them,” he said. “I got screwed, not going to lie.”
