There was no police response: Minneapolis business owner on looting

Urban Forage Winery & Cider House owners Jeff and Gita Rijal Zeitler join Yahoo FInance’s Zack Guzman to discuss how their business was among those damaged in Minneapolis in the wake of protests over George Floyd's death.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: As we've been discussing, a lot of different scenes have been playing out across the country, protests addressing the death of George Floyd. Of course, this all started in Minneapolis. As we've noted there, hundreds of businesses damaged in those protests.

And again, don't want to paint with broad strokes here in terms of what we've seen play out. There are a few bad actors trying to take advantage of the situation. We've seen that play out.

And for more on this, I'm going to be joined by the business owners of Urban Forage Winery and Cider House in Minneapolis. Jeff Zeitler and his wife Gita Zeitler join us now on the program. And Jeff, I guess we'll start with you.

I mean, you guys had already been closed down for the better part of three months, waiting for the coronavirus lockdown to be lifted. You're met with this. And I understand your business was damaged in all this. How have you been dealing with it at a time like this, when you were just getting positioned to reopen here?

JEFF ZEITLER: Well, we're dealing with it the best we can. We go back every morning to see if there's any new damage. Fortunately the last two days there haven't been. And the neighborhood's been really supportive. But we're just picking up as best we can.

We don't know when we're going to reopen. We just-- we can't be sure. We're waiting and seeing.

GITA ZEITLER: Or if even our building exists. We don't know. It's still boarded up.

JEFF ZEITLER: Yeah, well, we're hoping for the best on that.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I mean, what was it like to kind of come across-- how did you know that your business had been impacted by this? What was it like just walking by and actually seeing it firsthand?

JEFF ZEITLER: Well, we-- I mean, we had watched the news the night before. And I had kind of a bad feeling. But things all around our business had been broken into, looted, burned. And so we went the next morning, I think about 7:00 AM, to check on the place.

Of course, we found the front door, the lock broken, and the front door--

GITA ZEITLER: Smashed.

JEFF ZEITLER: --glass smashed. I went inside. It was a mess. Reviewing videos today, the thieves were just looking for money, honestly. They took some alcohol, but really they're just looking for money. I don't think politics or the death of George Floyd played a whole big role in this, frankly.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and that's kind of been the question of what we're seeing play out in terms of this. Obviously it started in Minneapolis, but we've seen a lot of looting taking place in cities across the country. But more specifically to your guys' experience, you had been pretty critical of the police response there in terms of preventing some of this from happening. Was there ever any real push to protect the local businesses in Minneapolis?

JEFF ZEITLER: There was no police response. We should be clear about that. There was no police response.

When we went there on Thursday morning to board up, we were there from about 8:00 AM-- well, 7:00, kind of earlier than 8:00 AM. We started boarding up at 8:00. I went and got plywood.

And we boarded up-- we were there until about 2:00. And we didn't see a single police car, fire engine.

GITA ZEITLER: Can I say something?

JEFF ZEITLER: Yeah, go ahead.

GITA ZEITLER: You know, we have been in that neighborhood-- we live in St. Paul. Our business there for 7 years. Whenever vandalism, anything happens, police response has been zero for seven years. They are not there to help small business or the-- anything.

JEFF ZEITLER: We're located four blocks from the third precinct police station. And when we would call 911 to reports something, it would take half an hour to 45 minutes for a response. And now there is simply no police presence at all, still today. Yeah, I just came back from there. There still is no police presence.

The area is being secured by people in the neighborhood who are watching out for local businesses. That's what's happening. There is no National Guard. There's no police. There are no flare trucks in the area right now. And that has been the case for the last five days.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and when we've gotten-- I mean, we were talking with someone in the business community there in Minneapolis, talking about efforts there to kind of support small businesses. If it's not coming from the police or officials in the area, what has been kind of the overall vantage point of other small business owners like yourselves in terms of reopening right now? If there was so much pent-up optimism to get your doors back open, now this happens-- what does it do the timeline of actually wanting to even open back up?

JEFF ZEITLER: Well, I don't know. That's the hard part. What do you think you'd do? What's your take on it?

GITA ZEITLER: You know, I mean, due to COVID-19, we're already hit hard. We have a hard time to survive. And we don't know. Neighborhood is destroyed. We don't know we should be in that area for our safety, for our business.

We don't know what's coming, what will come back. A lot of neighborhood businesses that we know, our friends might not open, might not be able to open their business. And we don't know if it is safe for us to have business in that neighborhood. That's our concern right now.

Even our building might not burn. Maybe we can open. I don't know we can exist there, because for our personal safety.

JEFF ZEITLER: We'd like to reopen. We'd like to reopen, but--

GITA ZEITLER: Yeah, we'd like to reopen. We like the neighborhood.

JEFF ZEITLER: When the Walgreens the across the street that we used to run to when we ran out of something is burned to the ground, and the library has been ransacked, and all the businesses are boarded up, are we--

GITA ZEITLER: Yeah, burned down.

JEFF ZEITLER: Or burned down. I mean, are we going open our doors? And when there's no police anywhere, and there's no security, except for what the good neighbors are providing-- and we're dependent on the kindness of our neighbors at the moment.

But can we rely just on that to keep us completely safe all the time? I don't know. I don't know that we can.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and I don't suspect-- I mean, you're seeing these scenes play out in other cities as well. It's not necessarily something-- it's hard enough to open and run a small business. Having to deal with defending it yourself is not something that I think a lot of people would agree in thinking that that has to fall on your guys' shoulders as well.

But optimism at least in hearing that the community there to support you guys. I wish you guys the best of luck. Jeff and--

GITA ZEITLER: Thank you.

ZACK GUZMAN: --Gita Zeitler, Urban Forage Winery and Cider.

GITA ZEITLER: Thank you very much.

ZACK GUZMAN: Thank you guys. Appreciate it.