MINNEAPOLIS – Early in the George Floyd riots, with police overwhelmed, someone drove a car into Thurston’s Jewelry Store on Lake Street in Minneapolis. The store was overrun by looters. The windows were smashed. Lloyd Drilling says he was lucky the most expensive jewelry was in the safe. Anything that could be taken out the door was stolen.
“So that put us out of business for a few months and we had to rebuild the store and fix it up,” Drilling says.
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The jewelry business has rebounded, but not the customers.
In the city that pioneered the movement to defund the police, homeless people are present on most blocks. Open-air drug use is so common that it doesn’t attract attention, and petty crime plagues businesses that have been allowed to reopen.
Minneapolis residents woke up to assess the damage after rioters set fires and looted stores across the city, as peaceful protests turned increasingly violent following the death of George Floyd during an arrest. Here, the 190-unit apartment building under construction, tentatively known as Midtown Corner (right), was reduced to ashes at the corner of 26th Avenue and 29th Street. (Photo by Brian Peterson/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
As a result, Drilling says, the suburban population that once supported his business is no longer coming downtown. “I think they feel unsafe in the city, in this neighborhood and in (other) neighborhoods. They’re a little afraid to come here,” Drilling says.
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Criminals make every aspect of doing business difficult in downtown Minneapolis. Koby Rich opened a cosmetics store. He keeps a rectangle of plywood painted on the front door of Rich Girl’s Cosmetics because vandals keep breaking the glass in his front door. He’s tired of spending money to fix it.
“It makes things difficult because of the vandalism that it causes, you know, when your windows get broken, when your doors get kicked in or when your store gets completely destroyed,” Rich said.
A protester holds a sign that reads “Blue Lives Murder” on Friday evening, May 29, 2020. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Jim Schultz of the Minnesota Private Business Council believes there is a direct link between the crime spike and the leadership of Gov. Tim Walz. “A lot of Democratic leaders in the state have adopted really irresponsible policies on policing and crime,” Schulz says. “The result has been the largest increase in violent crime in Minnesota history. And Tim Walz has presided over that. Minnesota businesses continue to feel the effects.”
Even without the crime, business owners and executives say Minnesota, with Gov. Walz at the helm, has not been friendly to job creators.
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The state has the highest corporate tax rate in the nation, at 9.8 percent. Doug Loon of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce says the Walz administration has missed opportunities to create jobs because the governor has other priorities. “A lot of progressive policies that have been passed by the legislature and signed by the governor have limited the private sector from reaching its economic potential,” Loon says.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, attends a rally to kick off their campaign at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The chamber says Minnesota now ranks 47th among states nationwide in job creation and 46th in gross domestic product.
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Kent Bergman opened Campanelle in Lino Lakes, a Minneapolis suburb. He weathered the Covid lockdowns. But burdened by taxes and regulations, he still lives off his own savings, unable to bring home a profit. “With all the obligations and everything that we have to do as a restaurant, the small business that we’re in, the state makes it almost impossible for a small business or a restaurant to survive,” Bergman says.
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