Minneapolis wont allow security doors or windows for business

A tremendous amount of looting and destruction of property occurred during the riots in Minneapolis a month ago and the police proved damn near useless in preventing it. The fact that I feel as though the police in this city and other cities where this nonsense is taking place could have easily ended this before it became a problem is another story but now owners of destroyed businesses would simply like to look after themselves and their business by installing security or "roll down" doors for their shops and the request was actually denied.

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For reasons that I don't care to investigate, Minneapolis has had a ban on these sorts of security gates since 2004. After extensive looting and burning of business that took place during the riots, a sensible person might think that reversing this silly rule would be an easy call, but we don't live in sensible times now, do we.

Some of the businesses that were looted lost tens even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, not to mention that those giant glass windows are expensive on their own.

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Many of these businesses had large, custom-made windows that the total cost of replacement ended up being $30,000 or more. The pitiful excuse that was made by morons at the time was "don't worry, insurance will cover it!" For anyone that uttered these asinine words I have to wonder if they have ever had to deal with an insurance company. These companies make huge sums of money by delaying or denying any payment that they possibly can. Even when they do "pay out" the sum is normally far lower than the actual cost of replacement. This situation is exactly what business owner are seeing in Minneapolis as some of the insurance payment quotes they are getting aren't even half what it will cost to repair their damaged or in many cases, destroyed businesses.

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In some of the worst stories we are seeing that businesses that were burned to the ground are now faced with massive demolition costs that the insurance wont cover. To add insult to injury the city will now FINE THEM if they don't remove the debris in a timely manner.

The city hasn't officially completely denied owners of businesses the ability to put security doors on their business but the fact that you have to ask permission at all, especially after what JUST HAPPENED, is shameful. The city states that business owners can apply for a "variance" to the law but people who have tried have said that the qualifications for variance have not been updated since the law was written in 2004 and therefore "being afraid of another riot when the cops are acquitted" or "all of my windows were destroyed and my building was looted because police failed to do their job" is not a good enough reason to be approved for such an exception.

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I certainly hope that the people of Minneapolis or sensible enough to get rid of mayor Jacob Frey and the entire city council come the next election. The fact that the riots were able to happen at all and that they were allowed to continue is a good enough reason on its own. The fact that we are now past that and they are actually telling business owners that they are not allowed to protect their own property with security gates, is just horrific.

This is the reason why I am Libertarian. I think that a person should be able to do whatever the hell they want with their own property provided it doesn't harm another person. I am not talking about your feelings either or whether or not you think it looks nice. Government meddling or even prevention of industry through stupid rules, especially after a situation like the one we just saw in Minneapolis, is a testament to how critically ineffective government is at running things.

Let the owners decide for themselves you dolts. If this sort of political garbage were to happen in my community, you better believe that the people would rally to make sure that the politicians responsible would never work in that city again. I certainly hope the people of Minneapolis and the rest of Minnesota have the good sense to do the same with their leaders.