Caught in the Crossfire: Sacramento Toy Store Closes After Death Threats Over Someone Else's Fight

When a Utah company’s legal mess goes viral, the collateral damage lands somewhere unexpected—in this case, a toy store in Sacramento that had nothing to do with it.

Dylan Anderson, general manager of Bricks&Minifigs Pocket Sacramento, is shutting down his independently owned store for a week starting June 13 because his team has been flooded with death threats, angry calls, hostile texts, and vicious emails. The reason? A YouTube video with millions of views that accuses the corporate Bricks&Minifigs corporation—based in Utah and completely separate from Anderson’s operation—of stealing $200,000 worth of rare Star Wars LEGO sets in a consignment dispute at their Salem, Oregon location. That Salem store has since closed.

The thing is, Anderson’s Sacramento franchise wasn’t involved in any of this. It opened less than a year ago and has been building community one LEGO brick at a time, hosting birthday parties and school outings. Yet the internet’s anger machine doesn’t seem interested in nuance. The threatening messages are brutal:“You’re part of the s—tbag corporation. We’re gonna f—you just like we f—-ed them.”Another warned,“Either you stand up and stand on your own two feet, or we just come out and take your own two feet out from underneath ya.”

Anderson’s priority now is simple—protect his employees, his customers, and his family. He’s hoping the week-long closure gives people time to actually understand the difference between a locally owned Sacramento business and a corporate entity in another state entirely.“We appreciate people’s passions,”he said.“But we are an independent store, owned here in the community of Sacramento.”

Long-time customer Reginald Lowe gets it. He sees what this place actually is: community, life, happiness.“The little kiddies all over the place,”he said.“Because it’s toys, we don’t understand the harassment.”That’s the real tragedy here—Sacramento could lose a local business because of collateral damage from someone else’s fight. Ben Schneider, the YouTube creator behind the original investigation, has since issued a statement urging viewers not to direct anger at independent store owners who weren’t involved in the matter being reported on. But the damage has already been done, and one Sacramento business is paying the price for going viral on the internet’s bad side.