Category Archives: Minneapolis

Life in, and the government of, Minnesota’s largest city.

Unexpectedly

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To: The Minneapolis City Council
From: Mitch Berg, Unruly Peasant
Re: Threats

Minneapolis City Council Members,

In this Channel 4 story, you are individually and as a body shocked, shocked, that “activists” are getting more angry, even borderline-violent, in their interactions with…the City Council.

In this case, it was over a vote re…it doesn’t matter that much, except it’s something moderately routine, except for the “activists” involved.

Anyway (with emphasis added by me):

After the failed vote, protestors began to shout and scream at councilmembers and approach the dais. The meeting had to go into recess and the protestors were removed before it continued.

During the shouting, an aide for Councilmember Michael Rainville says specific threats were made against Rainville’s family. Councilmember Emily Koski joined Rainville in filing a police report against the protestors.

“You can’t have democracy if you don’t allow the democratic process to happen and if you have someone that is fearful for their lives or that of their families because of a vote that they took, that is wrong,” said Mayor Jacob Frey.

Anyone but me remembering when Mayor McDreamy all but told the police to stand down in the face of threats to Trump supporters when they rallied at the Target Center?

Democracy didn’t matter so much then, I guess…

…but that’s a matter for another rant.

The answer comes from Economics 101 – a class no Minneapolis City Council person passed before the class (like the City Council) was taken over by the people from the Grievance Stuidies department; when you reward, or fail to provide negative consequences for, negative behavior that someone sees as benefitting them, you will get more of that behavior.

The Twin Cities “activist” class blocked freeways – and those who objected got the negative consequences.

They attacked Trump supporters at rallies – and were practically feted by the city.

Then, after they ran riot after the death of George Floyd, and the Mayor and Governor decided to follow Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s dubious example and give the mob “space to destroy” Baltimore, they threw the mob a bone; not just an entire (majority black, Latino and immigrant) neighborhood, but an entire police precinct, thinking the mob was some toddler that needed to work out his aggressions, and was shocked, shocked that they just kept going?

In confrontation after confrontation, the city o Minneapolis, and the Walz Administration, has shown those who were willing to resort to violence that not only would there be no consequences, but it would positively help them get their way.

You sowed the poo-storm. You are reaping the poo-storm.

Well, you’re starting to. You’re discovering that, in a Minneapolis (and Minnesota) run by the Grievance Studies department, expecting to be safe is a privilege.

Unexpectedly

That is all.

I’m From The Government, And I’m Here To Help Fix History

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1950: The “Expert” class pushes “Urban Renewal” – the freeway system was part of it. Neighborhoods destroyed, downtowns gutted, replaced with inorganic bauhaus canyons – because Big Government and the Expert class said it was for our own good.

But it sure transferred money into the hands of the political class!

2023: Sure, let’s try it all again.

Big Government is the problem behind every other problem.

No Way No How Signs Of Collapse Nosirreebob

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One of the symptoms of a strong, thriving downtown, is when multiple outlets of a popular store chain, selling a common addictive product to locals and passersby, close en masse.

Haines – good news! – that’s exactly what’s happening!

Minnesota-based Caribou Coffee is reportedly closing some of its downtown Minneapolis shops in the near future.

Four stores, including three in the skyway, will be closing at the end of next month, as a part of Minneapolis’ continued renaissance.

Evidence

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You might look at Minneapolis, and silently wonder to yourself “how did that city become like it is? How do people like Jacob Frey and Alondra Cano and the City Council keep getting elected? What is with those voters“?

And then you read…:

And you turn your mind to productive things.

Worse Waitress

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After twenty years on Eat Street, “Bad Waitress” – as perfect a metaphor for life in a city run by Democrats – has abused its last customer.

“When we opened The Bad Waitress, we set out to serve our friends and neighbors better food with a fresh approach. We’ve believed since the start that brunch makes everything better – but this time, it couldn’t save the day,” the Cohens wrote. “We hope you’ll join us for one last lunch date, boozy brunch, mid-morning coffee, or to use your Bad Waitress gift card before we close our doors on Sunday, January 29.”  

They actually had two locations. The other one, up in Northeast, closed…

…oh, just you guess when. 2020. You got it.

But remember – don’t you dare say Minneapolis is in a death spiral.

While I wish the folks at Hell’s Kitchen all the best, after some of their wokiness, I can’t help but wonder if the wolves aren’t circling the door.

Aaaaand We’re Off

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The goal of the Soros-funded district attorney is to make people distrust the system – by punishing the law-abiding and coddling the depraved – to the point where they demand a dictator to keep them safe.

We warned Hennepin County that that was Mary Moriarty’s goal.

The Good News: The tl:DR version of the story found in Alpha News’s tweet isn’t a great summary of the case.

Moriarty faces criticism for dismissing rape case during first week in office 

The Bad News: the actual facts are even worse:

Her campaign was opposed by 32 senior Hennepin County prosecutors, including Catherine McEnroe, who is now under investigation by the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, according to the Star Tribune.

McEnroe was leading the prosecution of 35-year-old Marco Tulio Rivera Enamorado, who was charged with one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He allegedly raped his 14-year-old cousin when he was invited from Honduras to come live with her family in the summer of 2019.

McEnroe is accused of fabricating the contents of a note that was passed to her by a victim advocate during Enamorado’s trial Jan. 6.

So – so far, what we have is a prosecutor who went on record opposing Moriarty (bad career move) lying to a judge (bad legal move). Hard to tell, to a layman, if this is incompetence, revenge, or both.

But it gets worse; rather than take the hit and go forward with a different prosecutor in this rape case, Moriarty dismissed the chargfes:

A source with knowledge of the situation said there was no reason for the case to be dismissed, especially since two other prosecutors offered to take over the case.

“The conduct of the county attorney trying the case had nothing to do with the substance of the actual trial,” the source said. “That attorney absolutely could have continued on with the case. If there was concern about her candor to the court, then a supervisor could have acted as co-counsel to ensure the court that there would be truthfulness.”

Moriarty said her priority from the beginning was “trying to see if we could continue to prosecute this case, whether now or later after a mistrial might be declared.”

So Enamorado is free, can never be tried for the case again, and Mike Freeman is looking better and better.

You voted for this, Hennepin County.

Body Count

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Last February 9, in response to the shooting of Amir Locke, schools around the Twin Cities let their students walk out of school “in protest”.

Let’s be clear – these protests are about as spontaneous and organic as a Nuremberg Rally. The “student activists” who “plan” these walkouts are puppets. Muppets, really.

But I digress.

Amid all the hysteria over school shootings, one facts that gets lost is that schools are generally, statistically, the safest place for kids to be, there days, especially in places like North Minneapoli.

As Minneapolis discovered.

One of their students, DeShaun Hill – a football player and honor student – was shot while walking home.

A court has ruled that this was negligent, and awarded Hiill’s family $500K. I’ve added emphasis:

North High principal Mauri Friestleben was put on leave by the Minneapolis School District for her decision to let students walk out of class Feb. 9 to attend a sit-in at Minneapolis City Hall to protest the police shooting of Amir Locke. Friestleben was later allowed to return to her position.

Hill family attorney William Walker maintains Friestlben’s decision ultimately led to Deshaun’s death. 

“If that principal had not released these children over the instruction of the district… D. Hill would be alive today,” Walker told KARE 11 during a phone interview Tuesday, just hours before the vote. “They (Hill’s family) are devastated… You can talk to a mother who cries every day. D Hill Jr. was loved by everybody. He was the hope for this family.”

Walker said particularly disturbing is the fact that North families and caregivers were not informed about the decision to let students leave early, saying the Hills would have picked Deshaun up at school rather than let him walk home or to a public bus.  

The alleged killer – an apparent psychopath with a 12 year long criminal record – allegedly shot Hill for bumping into him on the street.

So, to sum up:

  • Keep kids in school: $0
  • Release them out onto the street, unsupervised, without telling families? $500,000
  • Remaining at the leading edge of the social justice fashion curve: Priceless.

Clarity

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On Friday morning, someone tried to jack a van in the Phillips Neighborhood.

The would-be victim tackled the suspect and held him til the cops arrived.

Point of order: in a Minneapolis where Mary Moriarty is the district attorney, is the suspect…:

  • The vanjacker, or
  • the guy who tackled the vanjackier?

With Mary Moriarty in office as Henco “prosecutor”, one must not assume.

Open Letter To HennCo

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To: Hennepin County
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: You’re Screwed Blue

Dear HennCo

I can’t believe I missed this; your new co-chief public defender (FKA “County Prosecutor”) was sworn in this past week.. As befits an unserious person in an unserious city at an unserious time, she was sworn in on a comic book:

The new attorney of Hennepin County, Mary Moriarty, took her oath of office Tuesday with her hand placed on a copy of a graphic novel about the late congressman John Lewis.

Photos from the swearing-in ceremony show Moriarty with her hand on a copy of “March,” which she described as a “graphic novel trilogy about Congress Member John Lewis and his courageous fight for voting rights.”

A comic book.

I may start rooting for the criminals at this rate.

Oh, yeah – no surprises here:

“Research and data show that non-restorative models of punishment do not prevent recidivism, do not repair families, and cause harm to a community. Incarceration, sometimes a year or more after a crime is committed, disconnects the punishment from the impact of a crime on a victim,” she says on her campaign website.

“Incarceration disconnects the person who committed violence from their community and makes reintegration extremely difficult,” the website adds. “Mary’s office will seek to provide an alternative to traditional prosecution through restorative justice as an option for victims.”

She also opposes the cash bail system, which is “not helping to make our community safer.”

So strap in, HennCo. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

Best Intentions

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Black owned detailing shops, immigrant owned restaurants and Vietnamese run nail salons come and go constantly throughout Minnesota. They come and go without much comments from the gatekeepers of popular culture.

but high concept, restaurants, especially the ones that clean closely to the progressive narrative? They get saturation media coverage, coming and going.

“Common Roots”, a high concept restaurant in south Minneapolis, got breathless media coverage when it opened a few years back. And with a mission statement like this, it’s no wonder:

‘According to their website, the eatery was operated around the values of supporting local farmers, being environmentally sustainable and providing living wages and benefits for employees.’

With a set up like that, you know how the story ends, don’t you?

“While we dramatically reduced our monthly losses during the course of the year, the business still will end 2022 with a large financial loss. We are still only operating at roughly half the sales we did prior to the pandemic. Our margins were thin in good times, but there’s absolutely no possibility of the budget working at anywhere near the volume we are at now,” Schwartzman wrote.

And I’m sure there’s no link, no way, no, how, between the fact that principal collided with reality:

He added that last week he was informed that staff wanted to unionize, which forced him to “take a fresh look at the overall state of the business.”

“I fully support the labor movement and would have loved being able to run a union business,” Schwartzman wrote, but said he “couldn’t commit to moving forward if I didn’t have confidence I would be able to keep the business open under all the very many different strains the business is under.”

Huh.

So, your principles have unsustainable prices?

Weird.

Vibrant! Vibraaaant! VIBRAAAAAAAAAAAANT!

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II had to double-check to see I hadn’t clicked onto the Babylon Bee by accident.

Alas, no.

Minneapolis, reacting to the latest round of retail closures, is starting a – I swear, I’m not making this up – “Vibrant Downtown Storefronts Workgroup” to try to make downtown, for lack of a better term, suck less:

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey convened a “Vibrant Downtown Storefronts Workgroup” this week following a string of recent high-profile closures.

“Cities that see the most success post-pandemic won’t cling to the old ways that are now changed forever,” Frey said in a press release. “Here in Minneapolis, we will step boldly into the future, guided by the top experts in our region, prepared to innovate and adapt. Minneapolis has always been a hub of commerce and innovation, and I am confident that this workgroup will help ensure we continue carrying that legacy forward.”

The workgroup will be co-chaired by Steve Cramer, president and CEO of the mpls downtown council, and Gabrielle Grier, managing director of Juxtaposition Arts.

So – downtown is starting a vibrant storefronts working group but downtown is back and it never really left and if you say otherwise you probably drive a minivan and live in Maple Grove.

Circling The Drain

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The hits keep coming for Minneapolis, as more restaurants  are calling it quits:

In Minneapolis alone, a number of long-standing institutions have called it quits. Rock Bottom Brewery, Seven Steakhouse and Sushi, Williams Pub and Peanut Bar, Amore Uptown and Stella’s Fish Cafe to name a few.

Some of them date back to long before I moved to the Cities – in this case, Asia Chow Mein in Columbia Heights:

“It was very hard to decide that,” Ng said. “At first, I was going to have my son take over, but now with so many obstacles and so many unknowns in this industry, I just hate for him to take over and he will be struggling like we have the last three years.”

Winnie said what served as a mold for success the prior generation, is one that no longer fits.

“The American dream maybe is for our parents,” Winnie said. “Because they think, immigrate here, they will make a better living, a better education for the kids. But I really don’t know what the outcome would be if we were to stay. I still have cousins and people back home and they’re doing really good too, you know?”

Ng said she is grateful for the sacrifice that her and Tim’s parents made. She recognizes the difficulty of moving to America, without speaking English, with the hopes of providing a better future for their children. She admired that they took the time to learn English, to navigate American cities, to learn how to walk in the snow, to learn to love eating American food.

In completely unrelated news, Downtown merchants and other leaders are trying to figure out what to do to revive downtown…

…which is back,and also never went away and has no crime or vacancy problem, and if you think it does you’re a rube from Waconia or Maple Grove.

Let Them Eat Pasta!

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Anyone remember Mika McFeely? He’s sort of the Filene’s Basement version of Ed Schultz, another guy who got his start talking about grown men chasing balls around fields, and decided to go into being a political, talking head. He’s the Heitkamp family’s token liberal on KFGO in Fargo, and proof that the talent bench for progressive talk hosts in Fargo is even shallower than in the Twin Cities.

I wrote about him (checks notes), a little over 12 years ago, when he wrote easily the stupidest hatchet piece I’ve ever seen, about Mary Franson, during the 2012 elections.

Anyway – he came to Minneapolis over the weekend. Ironically, it was to see Les Mis, a play featuring an out of touch patrician class that attacks a plebaian class whose travails they neither share nor understand.

Oh, yeah – he had a great time!

In other words, he went to a show, with hundreds of other people, and then went to a tony restaurant on the south end of the gentrified North Loop. Back to the hotel – or on the road back to Fargo? – by 11!

And look – no crime!

Guess all those people talking about crime in Minneapolis are wrong!

Speaking of crime – tourist McFeely has an interesting perspective on recent Twin Cities history:

Not sure it’s “Anti”-Fa that’s shooting up crowds after bar closing on First Avenue.

But he’s getting a little warmer: “Anti”-Fa are the children of the Twin Cities bon vivant class. But they didn’t burn the Ordway, or Kenwood or Linden Hills. They burned East Lake and University – the places where immigrants and lots of entrepreneurs and workers try to earn a living.

But he didn’t go to a show on Lake, or Uni, or up at Plymouth and Sheridan, now, did he?

Well, I guess that settles it!

Downtown’s Back, Baybee! (Part II)

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Close on the news that two of downtown Minneapolis is nicer office towers are going up for auction, to avoid foreclosure?

The Hilton, one of downtown‘s premier hotels, and site of the NARN‘s first big surprise triumph (the 2004 debate party between George Bush and John Kerry, where we expected and planned for 100 attendees, and got more like 700)

Yeah, things are looking up downtown, aren’t they?

Heavy-Handed Metaphor Alert

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A bar and restaurant explicitly aimed at revitalizing Downtown, and at “bringing Minneapolis together”,as a “place of healing for people” as one of its owners said, and overturning the image of downtown Minneapolis as a crime-ridden area enmeshed in a death spiral, has…

…oh, do I even need to finish the sentence?

I mean, let a thousand lights shine and all. It takes more gumption to try to open a restaurant downtown than I, for one, have.

But some of this stuff just seems to be the cosmic equivalent of taping a “kick me” sign on your back. The “Baghdad Bob” vibe alone was just tempting Murphy’s Law…

In March, a bartender at Ties Lounge & Rooftop told Alpha News that downtown Minneapolis is “very, very safe,” even though the city had released data at the time showing increased thefts, gunshot victims, and assaults in the area compared to the previous year.

…even if crime, and downtown’s eroding status as a destination, didn’t do it first.

Downtown’s Back, Baybee!

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If proclamations made with muted, Minnesotan gusto were correlated with economic results, Jacob Frey’s exhortations would have downtown Minneapolis humming along like Dallas.

Alas, they do not. Some of downtown’s signature office towers are ailing financially:

 The 30-story LaSalle Plaza in downtown Minneapolis is scheduled to go to auction next week after the previous owner, the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois, avoided foreclosure by transferring the building to its lender, Northwest Mutual.

Nearby Fifth Street Towers is facing the same fate and may also go back to its lender this month, according to Axios’ sources who were not authorized to discuss the matter.

And it’s not just your garden-variety class-AAAAA office space. It’s the big daddy of all the downtown office buildings (emphasis added):

Real estate analytics firm Trepp is keeping tabs on IDS Center — the city’s most iconic office tower — due to a 77% occupancy rate and the loss of Nordstrom Rack from Crystal Court, said senior managing director Manus Clancy

Rumors of downtown’s non-demise appear to be premature.

Self-Destruction

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I’ve had a couple of DFLs claim I, among other GOPs, “want Minneapolis to fail“. They cite a couple of online polls taken by my friend (and one of about six actual journalists in the Twin Cities) Bill Glahn showing lots of conservatives don’t think the city can be saved.

Speaking for myself? It’s not true.

37 years ago this past Saturday, just out of college, I moved to Minneapolis (and, a few years later, Saint Paul – because it was a place with huge opportunity, that a recent college grad with almost no money and without a tech degree and a really nice entry level salary (I didn’t get one of those for another 8 years) could afford to live in.

A friend of mine got an apartment, back then. Nice, brand new one-bedroom place – $400 a month. After inflation, probably $1,000 today. So tell me what a 1 bedroom in a brand new building in a neighborhood where a single 22 year old woman can live without a full time escort costs today?

In 1986, when I was working as a producer on the Don Vogel show, I booked a writer from the Fodor travel guide on the show. He’d just written an article calling Minneapolis and St. Paul “the Athens of the modern era“ – and he was not alone. Other publications shared the consesus – the Twin Cities were “the next big thing”, economically and culturally.

It was an amazing time to be here. And that was the place I wanted my kids to have, when the time came.

Something sure screwed up along the way, didn’t it?

The place is economically plateaued, *at best*. People respond “But look at all the Fortune 1000 companies!”, to which I respond “Sure – it can still be a good place to live and work, if you frequent the Guthrie and the club level at Target Center”.

But if you’re that kid getting out of school today? Usually economic stagnation comes with deflation. But thanks to the Met Council’s meddling, Minneapolis and Saint Paul housing stock is harder to find, AND hideously expensive, AND increasingly cheap (to build, not to rent) ticky-tack stick and frame apartments with the build quality of an IKEA dresser.

As to crime? Crime was bad in the ’80s, and got worse in the ’90s. But there was a general sense that those responsible thought it was a *bad* thing, and gave the appearance (outside the month before a “red wave” election) they wanted to do something about it. If the President of the Minneapolis City Council had called public safety a “privilege” in 1985, Walt Dziedzic would have led a mob of union pipefitters down from Northeast – back when Northeast was a blue collar neighborhood, not an “urban life” theme park for hipsters – and tarred and feathered her. If Attorney General Humphrey would have written an op-ed supporting defunding the MPD, someone would have checked him in for a 72 hour hold.

The Twin Cities are *not* better; they have not “moved forward“, they haven’t become “more vibrant,“ it’s just more dangerous, more expensive – and more segregated, especially by class.

I would love to see a rebirth of what the Twin Cities were – a hotbed of economic and scientific and artistic creativity and opportunity, and a place where young people of all backgrounds can afford to get established. A place where “vibrancy“ isn’t a punchline.

Can anybody possibly be delusional enough to think the current regime can bring that about?

As to the “polls” – should Minneapolis be saved? Sure.

Can it be, without a 180° political turn around? I’m afraid not.

Is it worth it? That’s its own people to decide.

30 ideas ago, New Yorkers decided New York City was worth saving. And they did it – they elected Rudy Giuliani (and other cities in the NYC metro area followed suit; Jersey City elected Brett Schundler, one of my personal political heroes). And a few years of hard work paid off; NYC went from being a high-crime toilet with a First Class section, to being one of the safest cities in America; a second Golden Age of New York followed closely.

NYC is in the middle of squandering that legacy – and there’s no way they’re electing another Giuliani, since the “Great Sort” has driven the Giuliani voters upstate or waaaay out onto Long Island.

As to Minneapolis? As long as the white, upper-middle-class, ultra-“progressive” laptop-class members continue to control everything about Minneapolis, there really is no hope.

And that’s a shame. The city used to have so much to offer, not just to them, but to *everyone*.

Fake News

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Rebecca Brannon – one of about seven or eight actual journalists in the Twin Cities – went to downtown Minneapolis Friday night/Saturday morning.

Or so she would have us believe:

https://twitter.com/rebsbrannon/status/1581385964999520256?s=46&t=F25LmjkeJe-30NQOd3qB1A

Of course, it can’t be; I’m reliably informed that “downtown is back“, and that anyone who disagrees is a suburban tourist who gets his entire world view from Tucker Carlson.

But boy, if it weren’t fake news, it would be pretty grim, wouldn’t it?

“It’s Easier To Get A Gun Than A Fresh Apple”

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That’s a direct quote from Mayor Frey, from a presser yesterday.

I could shred that statement myself, using facts and stuff

Or I could let Keith Ellison do it, far more delightfully, starting around :12 seconds into this video:

When Keith Ellison‘s BS detector explodes, spewing shrapnel about the room, you know you’ve got a problem.

“Does This Empty Building Make My City Look Fat?”

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When the cities of Minneapolis or St. Paul, or the Met Council, ask for public input, you can be certain of three things:

  • They have long since decided what they want to do
  • It is going to reflect the revealed egos of the decision makers involved, and how they want to manifest “moving their city/area forward“ in physical form
  • See the first bullet. And the post title, for that matter.Nobody cares about your input.

With that in mind – the city of Minneapolis is “seeking input“ on what to do with the old Kmart property at Lake and Nicollet:

The City of Minneapolis wants the public’s ideas on how it will redevelop the former site of Kmart at Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street…In order to gather public feedback for the project, the city has opened a surveythrough Nov. 30.

The survey asks residents about how they currently get to the area, for what reasons, and what their future goals for the area.

The city is “seeking input“ so they can check “seeking input“ off the statutory list of things to do, before doing exactly what whoever controls most of the city council wants done.

It’s how the Green Line got built down the middle of University even though the “public hearings” excoriated the idea.

It’s why the SW light rail got built through a hill and under a condo even though publc hearings said “put it where people are”.

It’s why they built a soccer stadium at the most congested intersection in the state, and tore down the retail that was the anchor of the Midway neighborhood.

Fearless prediction: the Kmart site will be turned into four blocks of “mixed use“ multi story apartments, with first floor office and business space that will mostly be filled by “community“ nonprofits.

“Public input” on public projects in MN are always a sham.

One Definition Of Insanity…

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…is “doing the same thing, over and over and over, and expecting a different result”.

Apropos nothing:

Tax money will be shifted from taxpayers to non-profits that are, themselves, run and staffed by junior members of the city’s DFL political class. They’ll do studies, write reports, have events, and mostly cash checks, and crime will rise and (maybe) fall on its own rhythm (or, like Detroit and Newark and Baltimore and Saint Louis, not fall at all, ever) – but the DFL will be able to claim with a straight-ish face that they are “Dooooooing Something” about crime.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This is Minneapolis

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Couple finds their stolen business work van at a homeless “encampment” – naturally, after doing their own investigating.

They called the Minneapolis Police.

It didn’t go well:

“If I can see my stolen property, I don’t care if its in someone’s home, in their business or on the street, I should have the right to go retrieve it with the authorities,” Heather says.

But the Lumleys say they were told by MPD that officers can’t go into the encampment to investigate or get the stolen property.

“To have just that kind of brush-aside when we actually need something was, to me, more frustrating than the actual theft,” Heather says.

A Minneapolis police spokesperson tells KARE 11 News that for life-saving situations, they don’t hesitate to enter encampments. But for property crimes, because of the hostile nature toward police inside the encampments, they need to slow down and make sure they have available staffing and resources before proceeding.

So the Lumleys attempt to get the van back themselves — filming a video following it as it drives out of the encampment — before the van speeds up and loses them.

The next day, the Lumleys learn the empty van was recovered, trashed and crashed in an alley.

“It was part of multiple hit and runs so now we’re talking about residents’ vehicles just being hit on the side of the road,” Heather says.

If you are looking for a good periapocalpytic business opportunity, opening a “group of thugs for hire” to do things like retrieving expensive property the cops won’t – y’know, their job in a place that observes the rule of law – could be a booming business.

Since, among people who can’t afford to move elsewhere and aren’t willing to or can’t afford to just live with it, it’s going to wind up happening soon anyway.