TIL Taco Johns and LeeAnn Chin are small struggling businesses we can't expect more than the bare minimum from. And I'm not particularly fond of 'labor conditions' as an excuse, given that plenty of establishments that have used that excuse for why their staffing and hours are lean have actually not been calling back any of the job applicants who apply. Turns out, if everyone expects so little of your service because of 'market conditions,' you can make more profit by doing nothing to improve your service. But that's neither here nor there.This is wishful thinking given labor conditions and that many of these organizations are family run.
Like, I don't expect every single store or kiosk to be open, but part of the tradeoff of ceding our street level retail to the skyway is that our downtown becomes useless if the skyway is closed. If it's not kept open and useful outside of working hours, it's a blight and no amount of boosterism or grandstanding about crime will change that.
It's just weird to me how much the downtown business interests meddle and complain about politics in Minneapolis but don't seem to consider things like "Hey, maybe if you adjusted lease rates in exchange for the restaurants in your skyway zone staying open late enough for the return commuters, the extra commerce and people milling about might make downtown feel more welcoming and somewhere people might want to spend time and money."
I'm not a fan of the skyway by any means, but if it's going to stay, actually commit to it being successful. Standardize the hours and make it useful. The halfway measure of 'let it languish and haphazardly close sections of it under the guise of public safety concerns' isn't working.