Red Tape Impedes Uncle Edgar’s Recovery

As I noted in early June, one of the casualties of the Minneapolis protests that followed George Floyd’s police-assisted killing in that city was Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore. The commercial shopfront in which that establishment had operated for four decades, alongside its sister enterprise, the slightly older Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore, was burned to the ground by rioting vandals (not protesters) in the early morning hours of Saturday, May 30. Owner Don Blyly couldn’t say at the time whether he would reopen his much-loved conjoined shops, but a GoFundMe campaign was launched soon afterward to raise funds needed to make that possible. (At last check, $166,762 had been promised toward a $500,000 goal.)

Now Blyly is facing another recovery hurdle, this one of the distinctly bureaucratic sort. Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune explains:

In Minneapolis, on a desolate lot where Don Blyly’s bookstore stood before being destroyed in the May riots, two men finish their cigarettes and then walk through a dangerous landscape filled with slippery debris and sharp objects. The city won’t let Blyly haul away his wreckage without a permit, and he can’t get a contractor to tell him how much it will cost to rebuild the store until that happens.

In [neighboring] St. Paul, where Jim Stage’s pharmacy burned down during the same disturbances, crews have already removed the bricks and scorched timbers. A steel fence keeps out trespassers. Stage expects construction of his new Lloyd’s Pharmacy to begin later this month.

The main reason for the different recoveries is simple: Minneapolis requires owners to prepay the second half of their 2020 property taxes in order to obtain a demolition permit. St. Paul does not.

“Minneapolis has not been particularly friendly toward business for some time,” said Blyly, who prepaid $8,847 in taxes last week but still hasn’t received his demolition permit. “They say they want to be helpful, but they certainly have not been.”

City officials say their hands are tied, pointing to a state
law that prohibits the removal of any structures or standing timber until all of the taxes assessed against the building have been fully paid. ...

Local business owners are appalled by the finger-pointing, noting that nearly 100 properties in Minneapolis were destroyed or severely damaged in the riots ... The vast majority of those properties are either still standing or have been turned into ugly and often dangerous piles of rubble. Owners say the lack of progress is discouraging reinvestment and sending customers to other parts of the metro.

You can read the complete Star Tribune piece here.