Protesters and rioters in Seattle are in the news all the time. One group of people in Seattle who get hardly any attention are the people trying to run businesses in the city.
They are deeply concerned about the efforts to defund the police. Some of them are even leaving the city.
Joshua Nelson reports at FOX News:
Seattle business owners close shop as city moves to defund police: ‘Safety became paramount’The push to defund the Seattle police is causing a local business owner to close his store, said Matt Raetzer, owner of Steelpologie Teas.“It was a decision after deliberation. We’ve been there for three and a half years. That was our first store,” Raetzer told “Fox & Friends.”Raetzer said that over the past several years the police have made “best efforts to stem the tide of growing homelessness, open-air drug use and violence.”“Seattle City Hall seems to continue to hobble their efforts to make a change,” he said…Raetzer said that near his store in Seattle there were multiple shootings resulting in injuries and death.“Several people were murdered and several people were injured and so at that point, safety became paramount,” he said.
The problem is the Seattle City Council, which is more concerned with advancing policy based on social justice than its most basic responsibilities, like making the city attractive to businesses and job creators.
Michelle Esteban of KOMO News has more:
Seattle businesses owners fed up with crime, worry about cuts to police departmentTwo people are in custody and four others may be charged after eight businesses were hit by vandals Sunday night on Seattle’s First Hill.Some business owners are fed up. They worry if this is happening before SPD cuts, what will happen afterwards?…It’s what some business owners feel is the new norm in Seattle: Cleaning and boarding up after smashed and spray-painted storefronts.“It is just an unnerving experience,” said Jamie Munson, who runs the Simply Seattle store in Pioneer Square. “Sadly it’s become routine; we’ve gotten good at calling the insurance company, boarding up windows and protecting the store. It’s just exhausting,” Munson said.Two of his three stores have been hit five times since protests began. Munson says that unnerving feeling he has never goes away for him or his staff.“I describe it as a low tension that never goes away,” Munson said.
What happens when more of these people pack up and move away, taking their tax revenue and jobs with them?
Deborah Horne of KIRO News says many of them already feel betrayed:
Some Seattle business owners feel ‘betrayed’ as City Council votes to cut SPD budgetSome of Seattle’s business community said they feel betrayed by the City Council.Many council members campaigned on a promise of hiring more police officers. And some business owners feel the council members are now going much too far…But Manuel Benevich said he does not regret moving his Gary Manuel Hair Salon here three years ago.”Oh, no, no, no,” he said. “Pioneer Square is like Brooklyn, New York. It’s very beautiful, very vibrant, pre-pandemic.”But he is looking warily at the council’s push to defund the police.”They should be finding ways to retrain and change the culture of the police department,” said Benevich, “not defunding them or firing them or weakening Seattle.”Their actions are straining even his liberal beliefs.”I think Seattle has a one -party rule, a one-party rule,” he said. “And that’s always dangerous.”
If the radical left in Seattle gets their way, will it matter if they’re the only ones left?
Featured image via YouTube.
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