Minneapolis Black-Owned Businesses Beg for Help in BLM Protest Zone
Black business owners struggling to survive in George Floyd Square
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Black-owned businesses, trapped in Minneapolis's Black Lives Matter protest zone, are begging for help as they struggle to survive in the no-go area, according to reports.
Business owners who operate around the intersection where George Floyd was killed by police last year — now known as George Floyd Square — say they are in dire straits.
The area is cordoned off with has a strict set of rules - even stricter for white people - and is the site of an ongoing BLM anti-police protest.
However, black merchants trying to make ends meet in the area are now pleading for help from the police, among other things.
Black people who live and work in the area near the once-thriving corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue say police have been forced to abandon the blocked-off intersection.
The blocking-off of the area has created a dangerous cop-free autonomous zone that has seen crime spike and business evaporate.
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“The city left me in danger,” the owner of Smoke In The Pit restaurant told The New York Post.
“They locked us up on here and left us behind,” said the merchant, who asked to be identified only as Alexander W. for fear of reprisals.
“They left me with no food, no water, nothing to eat,” Alexander told the Post.
“The police, fire trucks, can’t come in here.”
According to Breitbart, this is just another example of a "Democrat-run city more interested in pushing lies about systemic racism than actually fulfilling its primary obligation: keeping its citizens safe and ensuring they can freely go about the business of living their lives and making a living."
The Post reports that the no-go zone is empty of consumers.
Hardly any customers come anymore because they know it’s unsafe and they are likely to be harassed (or worse) by Black Lives Matter and Antifa "protesters."
Criminals and gangs who roam free without fear of police are adding to the problem.
“The black-owned businesses say they have lost 75-percent of their business since the Floyd memorial sprouted up shortly after his death” and “feel they have been the sacrificial lambs” at the hands of a Democrat-run city.
One of the mob leaders, who runs “George Floyd Square,” dismissed concerns of the business owners and residents by claiming that gang members “keep us safe in their own way.”
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According to the Post, the intersection is now essentially abandoned — save for the occasional gawker who posed for photos in front of a mural outside Cup Foods, the convenience store where Floyd allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill.
At least five stores along one block are shuttered.
Owners and workers at most of the stores that do remain open were too afraid to comment to reporters.
“Look around, things are empty,” said Richard Roberts, who works at the nearby Worldwide Outreach for Christ church.
“It’s not stopping violence,” Roberts noted.
The black-owned businesses have even launched a GoFundMe fundraising page in a desperate bid to stay afloat.
“In the fight for justice, we must not forget the fight of economic justice of (a) once-thriving community,” the fundraising page says.
“We business owners know that the fight for justice doesn’t just include justice from the legal system, we must also include justice for business impacted.”
“Business is bad,” an employee of Giant Express Laundromat said of the Square.
“No one absolutely knows who runs this,” he said.
“It’s like a union.
"One person is selected as a leader one week and if they’re not fit they get thrown out.”
