Flora Westbrooks is the owner of Flora's Hair Designs in Minneapolis and on May 29th her building was burned to the ground by rioters.
She says that instead of assisting her in the rebuilding process, local officials completely tore down her building and then stuck her with a $200,000 bill.
In the 100 days since the riots, she says city officials have basically neglected her and others, “I just feel like I'm alone and I'm sure other business owners feel the same as I do."
She noted that the bill from the city “is going to be over $200,000 just for tearing things down and putting up a fence there, so it's going to be lots of money that I can't afford that I don't have.”
Westbrooks owned the salon for about four decades, she told Fox News:
“...police “never showed up” and she “didn't see any police at all patrol my area” the night her business was burned down.
The hair salon, located in North Minneapolis, was burned down three days before it was scheduled to reopen after being closed for months due to coronavirus stay-at-home orders.
During a “Fox & Friends” appearance in July, Westbrooks said on the night of the attack she got a call that her son’s business was burning and so she knew her business might be targeted as well. She said when she got to the salon that day “everything was all up in a big fire, just a big ball of fire, smoke and fire and I couldn't believe it.”
Westbrook is not alone in voicing her anger at city official for their apathy.
This week, the Minnesota Star-Tribune ran a story about other small business owners who their livelihood destroyed during the riots who now have to deal with skyrocketing demolition costs that insurance money won’t come close to covering.
They report that Rioters destroyed the Sports Dome retail complex, a construction crew hired by the city knocked the building down because it was dangerously unstable. Then the city presented the property owners with a $140,000 bill for what it would cost to haul away the debris.
That owner, Jay Kim, says “we were really upset about that,” because his insurance police covered a maximum of $25,000.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter:
“like dozens of other investors whose properties were severely damaged in the May riots, the Kim family was stunned to discover that the money it would collect from its insurance company for demolition won’t come close to the actual costs of doing the job. Most policies limit reimbursement to $25,000 to $50,000, but contractors have been submitting bids of $200,000 to $300,000. In many cases, the price of the work is not much lower than the actual value of the property, records show.”