The joys of defunding the police coupled with requiring minimum amounts of security for highly vulnerable businesses. This ‘Small business owner’ nightclub with over $1,000,000 in startup the article is in reference to lol. The writer is very measured and chooses their words carefully for a reason though. It’s a decent writeup regarding the issue.

Here’s how the off-duty work program works: Some businesses — like large nightclubs — are required by the city to have security, which until 2020, sometimes had to be off-duty Minneapolis police officers.

In 2020, the Minneapolis City Council stopped requiring off-duty officers at licensed events, and let them hire private security instead. In August 2020, Velazquez told the City Council only four businesses were being required to hire off-duty MPD officers. But some businesses were voluntarily hiring them because they were under the impression they had no choice, he said. Others thought if they hired police officers they would get “some level of preferential treatment,” he said.