Thank you Terry for meeting with Marlene and sharing her story with your readers!
Everyone please consider attending French Meadow this Saturday, February 7th from 2-6 Mayor Frey will be attending and has a community announcement that is a symbol we can and will recover. This event will support French Meadow who has graciously agreed to host and other small businesses with all monetary donations.
Please come and enjoy food provided by French Meadow as well as participate in the silent auction, enjoy DJ Music and a positive community event. It will be 40 degrees on Saturday time to get out and enjoy some better temperatures as well.
One step at a time, one community event at a time we will get through this next challenging chapter in Minneapolis.
Aisha Chugthai the 10th ward council person couldn’t care less about small businesses. Her radical DSA agenda is supposed to help workers but when there are no businesses left there will be no jobs. She continues to be clueless and the sheep that follow her are about to be shorn and slaughtered. How Minneapolis keeps electing uneducated radicals is beyond me.
Under Chughtai’s tenure, the City Council has doubled down on an ideological agenda that treats small business owners less like community partners and more like obstacles to be managed—or eliminated. While rhetoric about “equity” and “justice” dominates council chambers, the lived reality for many independent shop owners is mounting costs, endless regulations, and a sense that City Hall simply doesn’t care whether they survive.
The problem isn’t one policy—it’s the cumulative effect of many. Ever-expanding labor mandates, rigid scheduling requirements, increased fees, and complex compliance rules may sound virtuous in theory, but in practice they crush businesses operating on razor-thin margins. Large corporations absorb these costs with teams of lawyers and HR departments. A family-run restaurant or neighborhood retailer cannot. When policymakers ignore that difference, closures are inevitable.
Commercial rents and property taxes have surged, yet Chughtai has shown little urgency in addressing the impact on small storefronts. Instead, she champions development and zoning changes that often accelerate displacement, pushing out long-standing businesses in favor of luxury projects or ideologically favored alternatives. The message to local entrepreneurs is clear: adapt instantly or get out of the way.
Then there’s the chaos of endless construction and street redesigns. Business owners along affected corridors have watched foot traffic disappear, parking evaporate, and timelines stretch on for months or years. Requests for relief are met with lectures about long-term vision. But a business that closes today will not be around to enjoy a future “transformation.”
Chughtai and her allies frequently dismiss these concerns as resistance to progress. That framing is both lazy and harmful. Wanting to keep your business open is not reactionary. Asking for flexibility is not greed. Small business owners are not villains simply because they can’t survive policies designed without them in mind.
What’s emerging in Ward 10 is a city where only large chains, nonprofits, or subsidized ventures can endure—while independent businesses quietly disappear. That outcome is not accidental. It is the predictable result of governance driven more by activist ideology than economic reality.
If Minneapolis truly cares about equity, it must start by ensuring that working people can actually run businesses here. Until Aisha Chughtai acknowledges the damage her approach has caused—and changes course—small businesses in her ward will continue to fail, one “unintended consequence” at a time.
I have heard similar stories from others who have experienced the same devastating impacts on their small businesses - retailers, service firms, and others. Having our primary corridors become ghost towns doesn't do anyone any good.
Dear Terry - Thank you for continuously helping share small business stories. As a small business owner in Minneapolis, it is very rough. Thank you and if you ever want to talk live, please let me know. Thnak you!
Thank you. I am not sure if I can make it. The issue with small business owners is that we have to work 26/9 now instead of 24/7. Hope I can be there. Thank you for all you do.
It’s affecting restaurants even far away from Lake Street. Heather’s on Chicago and El Tejaban in Richfield both have scaled-back menus, and you have to ring the doorbell at El Tejaban to get in.
As many are doing their best to stay away from ICE activity, I can only imagine how bad it is along Lake Street. I worry it will take years to recover from this.
Thank you Terry for meeting with Marlene and sharing her story with your readers!
Everyone please consider attending French Meadow this Saturday, February 7th from 2-6 Mayor Frey will be attending and has a community announcement that is a symbol we can and will recover. This event will support French Meadow who has graciously agreed to host and other small businesses with all monetary donations.
Please come and enjoy food provided by French Meadow as well as participate in the silent auction, enjoy DJ Music and a positive community event. It will be 40 degrees on Saturday time to get out and enjoy some better temperatures as well.
One step at a time, one community event at a time we will get through this next challenging chapter in Minneapolis.
I'll be there, I'm so sorry this is happening on top of everything else we've been through in South Minneapolis the last few years.
Aisha Chugthai the 10th ward council person couldn’t care less about small businesses. Her radical DSA agenda is supposed to help workers but when there are no businesses left there will be no jobs. She continues to be clueless and the sheep that follow her are about to be shorn and slaughtered. How Minneapolis keeps electing uneducated radicals is beyond me.
Could you be specific? What has she done to hurt businesses. What has another council member done that she should do?
Under Chughtai’s tenure, the City Council has doubled down on an ideological agenda that treats small business owners less like community partners and more like obstacles to be managed—or eliminated. While rhetoric about “equity” and “justice” dominates council chambers, the lived reality for many independent shop owners is mounting costs, endless regulations, and a sense that City Hall simply doesn’t care whether they survive.
The problem isn’t one policy—it’s the cumulative effect of many. Ever-expanding labor mandates, rigid scheduling requirements, increased fees, and complex compliance rules may sound virtuous in theory, but in practice they crush businesses operating on razor-thin margins. Large corporations absorb these costs with teams of lawyers and HR departments. A family-run restaurant or neighborhood retailer cannot. When policymakers ignore that difference, closures are inevitable.
Commercial rents and property taxes have surged, yet Chughtai has shown little urgency in addressing the impact on small storefronts. Instead, she champions development and zoning changes that often accelerate displacement, pushing out long-standing businesses in favor of luxury projects or ideologically favored alternatives. The message to local entrepreneurs is clear: adapt instantly or get out of the way.
Then there’s the chaos of endless construction and street redesigns. Business owners along affected corridors have watched foot traffic disappear, parking evaporate, and timelines stretch on for months or years. Requests for relief are met with lectures about long-term vision. But a business that closes today will not be around to enjoy a future “transformation.”
Chughtai and her allies frequently dismiss these concerns as resistance to progress. That framing is both lazy and harmful. Wanting to keep your business open is not reactionary. Asking for flexibility is not greed. Small business owners are not villains simply because they can’t survive policies designed without them in mind.
What’s emerging in Ward 10 is a city where only large chains, nonprofits, or subsidized ventures can endure—while independent businesses quietly disappear. That outcome is not accidental. It is the predictable result of governance driven more by activist ideology than economic reality.
If Minneapolis truly cares about equity, it must start by ensuring that working people can actually run businesses here. Until Aisha Chughtai acknowledges the damage her approach has caused—and changes course—small businesses in her ward will continue to fail, one “unintended consequence” at a time.
I have heard similar stories from others who have experienced the same devastating impacts on their small businesses - retailers, service firms, and others. Having our primary corridors become ghost towns doesn't do anyone any good.
Dear Terry - Thank you for continuously helping share small business stories. As a small business owner in Minneapolis, it is very rough. Thank you and if you ever want to talk live, please let me know. Thnak you!
I am planning to attend the fundraiser tomorrow afternoon. Will you be there?
Thank you. I am not sure if I can make it. The issue with small business owners is that we have to work 26/9 now instead of 24/7. Hope I can be there. Thank you for all you do.
It’s affecting restaurants even far away from Lake Street. Heather’s on Chicago and El Tejaban in Richfield both have scaled-back menus, and you have to ring the doorbell at El Tejaban to get in.
As many are doing their best to stay away from ICE activity, I can only imagine how bad it is along Lake Street. I worry it will take years to recover from this.
The salt cure recovery fund administered by the Minneapolis Foundation is ear marked specifically for restaurant support if people want to give.
https://thesaltcurefund.org
An idea why it is called “salt cure”?
Yes to preserve like we used to preserve food
A culling of the restaurant herd would greatly benefit the survivors.