Cash-strapped Minneapolis, Minnesota, is reportedly demanding that riot-wrecked businesses, including those that were burned to the ground in the protests following George Floyd’s death while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department, pay their property taxes before being allowed to rebuild.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Minneapolis city government is not issuing permits to remove ashes and debris leftover from arson attacks until business owners pay their 2020 taxes in full.
“In Minneapolis, on a desolate lot where Don Blyly’s bookstore stood before being destroyed in the May riots, two men finish their cigarettes and then walk through a dangerous landscape filled with slippery debris and sharp objects,” the Star-Tribune said Wednesday. “The city won’t let Blyly haul away his wreckage without a permit, and he can’t get a contractor to tell him how much it will cost to rebuild the store until that happens.”
Dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed in widespread looting in the days following George Floyd’s death. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, in a separate report, noted that 1,500 businesses were damaged and 150 were burned to the ground. TwinCities.com said, in June, that the damage could cost business owners as much as $55 million – and that was nearly two months ago.
Minneapolis officials say they’re bound by a law that “prohibits the removal of any structures or standing timber until all of the taxes assessed against the building have been fully paid,” but Hennepin county, which enforces that law, says they’ve suspended enforcement of that law for “riot-damaged properties.” – READ MORE
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