National Post (National Edition)
Protests add to woes of U.S. businesses hit hard by pandemic
It had only been two days since Lilliannia Ayers reopened her Queen Hippie Gypsy store in downtown Oakland, Cali., before her front window was smashed and her storefront was spray-painted Friday.
On Saturday night, she and neighbours stayed up all night to protect their stores — hopeful the protest movements across the U.S. would not destroy her business so soon after it suffered a devastating hit from the pandemic shutdown.
“It goes beyond the window,” she said. “We’re losing sales every day. We’ve already been impacted by COVID. We’ve lost so much more.”
Similar scenes of destruction have created chaos and concern along the path of the nation’s protests over the death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis. That’s pushed brick-and-mortar retail and restaurant industries, already hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, to the centre.
Retailers and other businesses in cities across the U.S., including the Bay Area, the District of Columbia, New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Minneapolis, experienced broken windows, thefts and other violence over the weekend.
The actions prompted a number of businesses to shut their doors and raised questions about how exactly the actions relate to the protesters, many of whom were peaceful.
Walmart on Sunday closed several hundred stores due to potential protests. Amazon said it had adjusted routes or scaled back delivery operations in some cities, while Apple closed an unspecified number of stores on Sunday. Target said it temporarily closed six stores in California, Minnesota, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
The Mayor of Philadelphia ordered all retailers to shut down Sunday.
The closures come after many U.S. retailers and restaurants already cut back on operations or shut completely in March due to restrictions implemented to protect people from the coronavirus pandemic. Those weeks of closures have already pushed some companies into bankruptcy, including J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus, plus smaller businesses that couldn’t survive a prolonged downturn.
“In normal times, businesses would probably take it in their stride,” said Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at GlobalData Retail. “But coming off the back of the pandemic, it’s devastating.”
Destruction is adding a new economic wrinkle for businesses already struggling. But the actions across the U.S. in protest of police brutality has also prompted many affected businesses to speak out in support of the protests.
“Since we opened our doors, Target has operated with love and opportunity for all. And in that spirit, we commit to contributing to a city and community that will turn the pain we’re all experiencing into better days for everyone,” Minneapolis-based Target chief executive Brian Cornell wrote in a public memo.
Starbucks executives hosted forums for employees to talk about the issues and their feelings. Best Buy’s senior leadership team — which stated “We are as a group, by and large, not people of colour” — penned a note pledging to commit to diversity and inclusion goals.
“Another black man in America died senselessly on Monday, and it happened only miles from where many of us live,” the note read. Best Buy is based in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield.
Meanwhile, as Saturday turned into Sunday, Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue thoroughfare was dotted by shattered windows and piles of glass. Collateral included a TD bank, a Men’s Wearhouse, and the Apple Store, where a single panel of its tempered glass facade had cracked but not broken. The walls along the route were filled with graffiti.
Along Broadway in New York’s SoHo neighbourhood, retail stores including the North Face and Journeys were looted, storefront windows smashed through by skateboards or other heavy objects. Several banks had shattered or completely smashed out windows.
Later Sunday, New York’s famous Fifth Avenue shopping area took a hit, as windows at retailers including Kate Spade, Tory Burch Sport and Victoria’s Secret were smashed.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms delivered an impassioned appeal to protesters Friday, saying more than half of business owners in the metro area are minorities.
“You’re not protesting anything running out with brown liquor in your hands and breaking windows in this city,” she said. “So when you burn down this city, you’re burning down our community.”
In Los Angeles, looters ran off with pricey sneakers from the boutique Flight Club after that city’s protests turned violent, according to media reports.
In Scottsdale, Arizona, YouTuber Jake Paul was caught on video watching looters pick apart a mall.
And in Seattle, there was the widely shared video on Twitter of a young woman walking down the sidewalk carrying an entire strawberry-topped cheesecake on a plate after a Cheesecake Factory was looted during protests.
The theft of T-shirts, computers and food can appear to run counter to the message from demonstrators who have filled streets in cities and towns from coast to coast following the death of George Floyd, some professors who study the topic said. The looting also can feel distinct from the unrest’s vandalism and property destruction.
But, said UCLA historian Robin Kelley, “every single rebellion and uprising has included it.”
Looting is often the result of normally law-abiding people taking advantage of a chaotic moment, especially when they are suffering economically, Kelley said.
It occurred often during the violent unrest in American cities of the late ’60s and early ’70s. It happened after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. It was a part of the 1917 East St. Louis riots, when white people killed and stormed the homes of black residents — stealing rugs and lamps, Kelley said.
Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic and 40 million people having filed for unemployment, “I was shocked there wasn’t more looting,” Kelley said of the current protests. “We’re dealing with an economic crisis.”