Over 150 Minnesota Businesses Will Resist Virus Restrictions If Extended

If Minnesota extends COVID-19 restrictions on Wednesday, the state should prepare to be ignored. Over 150 small Minnesota businesses have together decided they will resist orders if they are extended.

The businesses, which together formed the Reopen Minnesota Coalition, commented on Facebook:

"If you don’t own a business but would love to support these brave businesses and their thousands of employees, we will be posting the list of open businesses the night before they choose to open next week (Wed, the 16th or Fri, the 18th). Go give them business, tip well, and continue supporting them in the coming weeks. The fear is real out there, and fearful people can be very mean, so a kind word to these owners and employees in this Christmas season can mean everything.

"For those detractors to our cause, we appeal to your sense of justice and mercy, which we hope you have. These businesses represent not some money-hungry owners looking to swim in pools of gold, but rather people who have spent their lives risking so much to accomplish their dreams, employees struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads just as Christmas arrives, and so many other suffering Minnesotans. So we ask you simply and gently, have a heart.

"For those who want to say that these businesses are putting others at risk… we challenge you to show us from any science and data that the risk of going to a bar, or working out at a gym, or bowling ten frames, or teaching a small dance class is any more dangerous than going to Walmart, walking through a crowded MOA, or spending two hours in a busy supermarket. Trust us, we all have families, many of us have family members in the medical field, many of us have lost loved ones to COVID.

"But the state’s own data DOES NOT support any of the current lockdown, and much of the country and world stands amazed that Minnesota and a few other states still have leaders resorting to the failed policies of mass lockdown, especially lockdowns so arbitrary as this one.

"We demand the right to provide for our families as we always have, give income and employment to our workers as we always have, care for our communities as we always have, knowing that we care more for each of them than any St. Paul bureaucrat ever will. We have inalienable rights that no one can bully us out of without recourse. So next week, we plan to #OpenSafe."

As noted by the Daily Wire, coalition founder Darius Teichroew says the group's goal is “to provide a little bit of peace and prosperity to these owners and their desperate employees as we approach Christmas.”

Keith Ellison, state Attorney General, isn't playing it.

“I get no happiness out of enforcing the order," Ellison announces. "But my duty to protect Minnesotans from the deadliest global pandemic in a century demands it … It’s not fair to the vast majority of businesses who are doing their part to stop the spread of COVID-19 and are complying with the executive order to let a handful who chose not to compete unfairly with them.”

Earlier this month, Larvita McFarquhar, who owns a small-town bar in Minnesota, resisted the state's restrictions and opened her business on a Friday night. McFarquhar, a struggling single mother, was willing to risk a fine and even jail time.

“Yes, I’m aware ,” McFarquhar responded when warned. “But are you aware that the governor’s mandate is not a law? The governor does not pass laws and you are supposed to uphold the Constitution. You don’t work for the governor. You work for us.”

McFarquhar also mentioned that, despite her lack of income, her bar’s bills and taxes are due, a dilemma that so many small business owners have been forced to overcome the past nine months.

Everyone needs to make adjustments that serve them best. The most vulnerable should stay at home. Those who aren't should have the choice whether to go out and live their lives or curl up in a ball. (We know Democratic governors have been able to make those decisions. Maybe their intelligence qualifies them to make those choices?)

Credit to all the business owners pushing back at the government officials who are still getting paid.