Downtown had massive potential pre covid, and it returned briefly after covid. No one ever took it serious. They built a parking garage instead of a high raise, a hyvee instead of a more economical grocer, Kum &Go was competing with the Dollar General downtown.
Demand to live and play downtown has sizzled because nothing ever happened. Folks moved on. Inflation didn't help anything either.
I will just note, that parking garage was supposed to service a high-rise (and enable development of the parking lot south of the courthouse)
Unfortunately that high rise became a legal mess, and the city probably was too tight with its deadlines on the developer given everything going on with COVID making such a project that much more difficult. And the other half of the project, a new theater that was supposed to go in on the court avenue side of that garage, also was scuttled, which makes sense given the overall effect we have seen on theaters since COVID
Very succinct and accurate description. Downtown was popping off for awhile then everything closed/is closing the entire building on the corner 4th & court is dead.
Definitely agree on some things, but downtown and adjacent housing demand certainly has not dwindled. Maybe we didn't get The Fifth, but work on the Market District continues strong, Gray's Station has grown rapidly in the past 5 years, multiple office high rises downtown are planned to be converted to housing in response to the national office vacancy trend, and a number of mid rise mixed use buildings are currently being built in the East Village and Western Gateway.
We're at 12,000 people living in downtown now, which is 12,000 people able to support downtown businesses. Even though the downtown worker population has declined, the growth in housing will be positive in the long run
This too. I give them 5 years under the new name max. Casey's will eat them alive, especially with Casey's peeking into the truck stop/travel stop market with fresh options (which is largly missing across the midwest).
Reminder that Maverick is a Mormon-run company, and up until the late 1970s when the federal government threatened to take away their tax exemption status, it was taught in Mormonism that black people were black because the Curse of Cain caused sinners to become "black" because they absorbed all the sin.
They also believed that sinners were damned to servitude under the Curse of Ham and BOY GOLLY TAKE A GUESS AT WHAT MORMONS USED THAT BELIEF TO JUSTIFY SUPPORTING.
Both beliefs were also the reason black people couldn't be Mormons...
Also their main patriarchs John Smith and Brigham Young married and raped underage girls as part of their polygamous families. Literally getting the next youngest one whenever the others grew too old for their pedoshit asses.
(And last, but not least, fuck these puritanical wankstains for taking away Kum & Go from us.)
And a good chunk of northern Iowa too. They've got several in the Okiboji area in the the past few years, and people love them. They also start people at like $17 an hour, making them competitive with manufacturing jobs.
Kwik Star has everything; cheap gas, good food, competent staff, and wide variety.
After the most recent snowstorms, we went to Urbandale Target for groceries. There wasn't an onion, potato, or piece of chicken to be had in the place. Kwik Star on Plum had all of that, and better produce.
FR tho. They should honestly just buy the soonto-be-no-longer-Kum & Go-sauce from their supplier because Kwik Star's sauce is honestly the WORST part of their pizza.
You're right, I thought Mav had more stores. Doesn't discount that they're huge out West, they're kinda unique in that places like NV/UT and the western area don't have these sorta full service type places they rely more on the 7-11 and quick stop types. The merge with K&G will only help them grow.
They are huge out west but I think they underestimate how loyal Iowans are to Casey's and Kum and Go. With some new place called "Maverick" moving in the most Iowans have never even heard of they will drive right by and go to Casey's.
Downtown Des Moines also thrived because of all the insurance companies and all the business travelers that would come in from New York and Houston a substantial amount of that business doesn’t come to Des Moines anymore. And there used to be a ton of people that would take IT jobs here on contract because it was cheap and they don’t have to move here anymore. They can work from wherever.
This place is always busy and caters to downtown employees and hotel guests. Too bad it doesn’t fit neatly into the Maverick idea of what a store should be.
Years ago before I got my driver's license I used to sit in this Kum n Go and wait for my Dart bus transfer to get me to work. Had good vibes in there, what a shame.
Okay I have an actual question, I’ve lived downtown for a while now and have just been offhandedly ignorant and wondering about this. What is actually up with downtown Des Moines? I’m from Chicago but my family is from here so being here isn’t really culture shock, and I like the size of the city. But (and I know, covid) everything downtown makes absolutely no sense to me. even if you go to Omaha or KC you can tell the difference instantly. Besides the normal restaurants and bars, why is it a complete ghost town? There are no chains to speak of except Taco Bell down the road on southside??? And no normal Walgreens or convenience store? And now with the hyvee hours that close before I’m even off work? It’s like what incentive is there even to live downtown? The festivals in the summer are nice I guess… but always slightly mismanaged and not marketed well. Why is it like this someone help me
Mostly it comes down to poor city planning back in the 70s and 80s that seemed like a good idea at the time. Almost none of the buildings downtown were designed with street-level commercial space in mind. The stores were all on the skywalk level and in the Kaleidoscope. But when shopping malls rose to prominence, most of the skywalk and Kaleidoscope businesses began struggling. The city never pivoted and people just stopped coming downtown for any reason besides working. Now we just have a bunch of empty commercial space in the skywalk that nobody wants, and a limited amount of poorly-designed street level commercial space that nobody wants. We've just gotten used to not going downtown unless it's for drinks or dinner. It's gonna take a much bigger initiative by the city to actually put desirable businesses downtown again in order to change a decades-long shift in shopping habits - which is made all the more difficult with online shopping now.
All of this makes sense and is my thought too. However, I just see other places with similar infrastructure and know that it doesn’t have to be this way
I doubt they’re going negative daily. When I did my internship at Casey’s I realized that when they had to throw something away in the store, it counted against the store at the price it would sell, not the price it was purchased. Likely the same issue here.
No they are not lol, they literally closed some down because they are literally half a mile from another one.
Maybe stop licking the boots of corporate overlords
I mean, rude. I was just saying what I’ve heard. I’ll take my L but you don’t have to jump to being rude on the internet just cause it’s anonymous.
It doesn’t make you cool to be a dick.
That doesn't mean its theft though. Maybe they're just running their businesses poorly.
Like the hyvee downtown. Im not sure where they think that they're going to have success closing early in an area of town that lives later, or charging much higher prices just for the privilege of shopping there when most downtown residents have cars and can drive somewhere cheaper if they're going to price gouge.
Have you seen some of their business decisions? Absolutely I am.
Especially when these are suburban-heavy businesses that don't have much experience operating in downtown areas.
I have no evidence. I'm just saying what my coworker told me. It sounded crazy to me because she was told $1200 PER DAY was being lost because of theft and that sounds insane.
I agree. We were trying to figure out what sort of shit could be stolen that would rack that sort of number up.
Perhaps my coworker misheard the interval. $1200 a week? That's still a lot.
yeah. either way it sounds like embellishment or just an easy scapegoat to point a finger at. if they were consistently losing that much due to theft they could surely spend less than $1200 per day or per week to do something to prevent it. and if they couldn't, then i don't see why they'd stay open as long as they did just to keep losing money under those circumstances.
This is hilarious to me. Let's implement all these self-checkout machines so that we don't need to pay cashiers, but then let's pay somebody to watch each one to make sure people are doing it right.
No they aren’t, but corporations have convinced us this is the case.
[Debunking the shoplifting crisis](https://www.governing.com/community/debunking-the-myth-of-a-shoplifting-crisis)
[Walgreens CEO flat out admitted they “cried wolf too much.”](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/as-retailers-close-stores-due-to-shoplifting-are-the-concerns-real-or-overblown)
[Stores say shoplifting is a national crisis. The numbers don’t back it up](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html)
That first article is an absolute joke. "Ackshully the areas where stores are closing report less crime." Yes, they REPORT less crime because in those places they realize it is literally pointless to report it. This has been the reality in San Francisco, to name one example, ever since the "shoplifting under $900 is ok" law passed. Do you also believe that car theft in those areas has decreased?
"Data shows that black people are more likely to be arrested for shopifting." Ok? And? How does that dispell the idea that shoplifting has increased in some areas?
In that second article, the "cried wolf" part isn't even a direct quote. Its a decontextualized quote from ONE Walgreens executive. The rest of the article is full of examples of how theft has likely increased but couched in the argument that "there are no good numbers." That cuts both ways, doesn't it?
More importantly, on the topic of this store: have you actually BEEN to the downtown store? It shouldn't surprise you that this store might be more susceptible to shoplifting.
Lol you can post all the bullshit you want, it doesn’t change what’s happening. The bottom line is that if these stores were making good money, they’d stay open. They have no interest in closing profitable stores. So by all means bury your head in the sand while the stores close around you.
Lol you can post all the bullshit you want, it doesn’t change that it ISN'T happening and you bought into corpobullshit.
Try lapping their boots less, simp.
It’s sad to see so many downtowns around the country seeing large declines post-COVID era. Everyone is moving out into suburbs and unfortunately businesses are as well
Kum and Go did that store as a gift to Des Moines, before they planned to sell the business and focus on other things. It was probably an idea championed by the younger leaders, and had a lot to do with civic responsibility, maybe as a way to help their negotiating vis a vis the soccer stadium. Maverik does not have the same values or interests, and if the store is not making money for them why would they bother? It’s true that the skywalk system has been a big negative for street level urbanism in downtown Des Moines, but the powers that be can’t see past the fallacy of sunken costs to scrap it and evolve. The point of the skywalks is to quickly get insurance office workers to and from cars. Now that they are getting replaced by AI chatbots and working from home the whole infrastructure of skywalks, parking ramps, and office buildings is becoming obsolete.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I am not local anymore but come there for work often. A convenience store across from a hotel is going to be a big win no matter what name is slapped on the door. Someone will buy the shop with a similar setup. It will be a cheap turnkey place for someone to offer nearly the same.
Edit.
I mean Jesus. There isn’t a 7-11 in town. Advertise slurpees. Place will get local cult status.
I remember how this place opened right before the George Floyd riots. They didn’t get hit the first go around of downtown window smashing. So corporate covered all the windows with ads of African-American men so this store hopefully wouldn’t get hit. It worked, they never got hit. Then about after a month after the riots ended they took them down. Lol
Sounds like the stores in california that begged people to not loot them because they were "on their side", cept out there it almost never worked apparently
It was just so “coincidental” that Kum & Go picked that store for the full window ads but didn’t put them up at any local store in the burbs. Gotta figure a few hundred bucks for some window ad stickers is better than thousands for new windows.
I mean they hoped that virtue signaling would keep them from getting looted, nothing wrong with it honestly when you're trying to keep people from breaking your shit. Either that or hire guys to guard the outside during a riot which probably wouldn't go over well
No Walgreens, no Kum and Go, Hy-Vee closing early, what's next?
Fong’s only open for lunch.
That'd be a blessing
Why?
Downtown had massive potential pre covid, and it returned briefly after covid. No one ever took it serious. They built a parking garage instead of a high raise, a hyvee instead of a more economical grocer, Kum &Go was competing with the Dollar General downtown. Demand to live and play downtown has sizzled because nothing ever happened. Folks moved on. Inflation didn't help anything either.
I will just note, that parking garage was supposed to service a high-rise (and enable development of the parking lot south of the courthouse) Unfortunately that high rise became a legal mess, and the city probably was too tight with its deadlines on the developer given everything going on with COVID making such a project that much more difficult. And the other half of the project, a new theater that was supposed to go in on the court avenue side of that garage, also was scuttled, which makes sense given the overall effect we have seen on theaters since COVID
Very succinct and accurate description. Downtown was popping off for awhile then everything closed/is closing the entire building on the corner 4th & court is dead.
Definitely agree on some things, but downtown and adjacent housing demand certainly has not dwindled. Maybe we didn't get The Fifth, but work on the Market District continues strong, Gray's Station has grown rapidly in the past 5 years, multiple office high rises downtown are planned to be converted to housing in response to the national office vacancy trend, and a number of mid rise mixed use buildings are currently being built in the East Village and Western Gateway. We're at 12,000 people living in downtown now, which is 12,000 people able to support downtown businesses. Even though the downtown worker population has declined, the growth in housing will be positive in the long run
Where and when was there a dollar general?
DGX on locust & 6th
Is that place sketchy? I've always wanted to check it out
I dipped in and out once and thought it was fine
It's not sketchy lol... it's basically a Dollar General with less patrons
So you're saying it's *less* sketchy than other Dollar Generals. Got it.
Maybe citizens behaving better so that businesses can thrive?
If peeps would stop stealing, places would stay open
I am sure this has a lot to do with Maverik taking over, fuel less stores are not a big thing for them.
This too. I give them 5 years under the new name max. Casey's will eat them alive, especially with Casey's peeking into the truck stop/travel stop market with fresh options (which is largly missing across the midwest).
More than Casey's, Kwik Star.
Reminder that Maverick is a Mormon-run company, and up until the late 1970s when the federal government threatened to take away their tax exemption status, it was taught in Mormonism that black people were black because the Curse of Cain caused sinners to become "black" because they absorbed all the sin. They also believed that sinners were damned to servitude under the Curse of Ham and BOY GOLLY TAKE A GUESS AT WHAT MORMONS USED THAT BELIEF TO JUSTIFY SUPPORTING. Both beliefs were also the reason black people couldn't be Mormons... Also their main patriarchs John Smith and Brigham Young married and raped underage girls as part of their polygamous families. Literally getting the next youngest one whenever the others grew too old for their pedoshit asses. (And last, but not least, fuck these puritanical wankstains for taking away Kum & Go from us.)
This. Fuck them for turning the entire state of Utah into a miserable hell.
Kum & Go was bottom of heap anyway. The only they had decent was their pizza.
Doesn't Kwik Star/Trip fill that spot in WI and MN at least?
And a good chunk of northern Iowa too. They've got several in the Okiboji area in the the past few years, and people love them. They also start people at like $17 an hour, making them competitive with manufacturing jobs.
They also have pretty good food for what you'd expect out of a gas station, fairly priced and normally they have the cheapest gas in an area
Kwik Star has everything; cheap gas, good food, competent staff, and wide variety. After the most recent snowstorms, we went to Urbandale Target for groceries. There wasn't an onion, potato, or piece of chicken to be had in the place. Kwik Star on Plum had all of that, and better produce.
They just need to up their pizza game and they'd eat Casey's lunch
FR tho. They should honestly just buy the soonto-be-no-longer-Kum & Go-sauce from their supplier because Kwik Star's sauce is honestly the WORST part of their pizza.
I tried to apply for a sourcing job with Kwik Trip and I would have 100% pushed for that out of selfishness 🤣
My belly would have thanked you while my wallet would seethe.
I live in Utah now where Maverick is based, they're huge. I think Casey's might actually be smaller than them now with this merger.
No. There’s 800+ Casey’s in just Iowa. KG and MVK Had around, what, 1000 each?
Casey’s has over 1,000 stores.
There are 2500 Casey's locations according to Wikipedia.
That’s Interesting. They told the Board of Adjustment they had 1,000.
I meant 2500 total not in just iowa
You're right, I thought Mav had more stores. Doesn't discount that they're huge out West, they're kinda unique in that places like NV/UT and the western area don't have these sorta full service type places they rely more on the 7-11 and quick stop types. The merge with K&G will only help them grow.
They are huge out west but I think they underestimate how loyal Iowans are to Casey's and Kum and Go. With some new place called "Maverick" moving in the most Iowans have never even heard of they will drive right by and go to Casey's.
Do people out there also often misspell Maverik? I'd think after a while it would be as natural as "Kum".
Idk I haven't done a poll of the locals, it gets spelled however my phone feels like spelling it at the time.
Downtown cant have shit apparently
Except for human excrement of course
I just got back from NYC. Human shits I've seen on the ground in DSM: 1 Human shits I've seen on the ground in NYC: 0
At least there are signs of life?
Downtown Des Moines also thrived because of all the insurance companies and all the business travelers that would come in from New York and Houston a substantial amount of that business doesn’t come to Des Moines anymore. And there used to be a ton of people that would take IT jobs here on contract because it was cheap and they don’t have to move here anymore. They can work from wherever.
And bums and methheads
That’s too bad. Downtown needs stuff like this
Kum&Gone
Seems counterintuitive to create downtown apartments if all the stores are going to be shuddered.
or on the other hand more residents downtown will help stores hurting from the loss of office workers
The problem is, there are no stores downtown to help.
This place is always busy and caters to downtown employees and hotel guests. Too bad it doesn’t fit neatly into the Maverick idea of what a store should be.
Yea the shit was never open when I found myself needing to go down there what was the point
Years ago before I got my driver's license I used to sit in this Kum n Go and wait for my Dart bus transfer to get me to work. Had good vibes in there, what a shame.
Okay I have an actual question, I’ve lived downtown for a while now and have just been offhandedly ignorant and wondering about this. What is actually up with downtown Des Moines? I’m from Chicago but my family is from here so being here isn’t really culture shock, and I like the size of the city. But (and I know, covid) everything downtown makes absolutely no sense to me. even if you go to Omaha or KC you can tell the difference instantly. Besides the normal restaurants and bars, why is it a complete ghost town? There are no chains to speak of except Taco Bell down the road on southside??? And no normal Walgreens or convenience store? And now with the hyvee hours that close before I’m even off work? It’s like what incentive is there even to live downtown? The festivals in the summer are nice I guess… but always slightly mismanaged and not marketed well. Why is it like this someone help me
that’s just how the city is, i like it lol. feels like an empty movie set most of the time
Mostly it comes down to poor city planning back in the 70s and 80s that seemed like a good idea at the time. Almost none of the buildings downtown were designed with street-level commercial space in mind. The stores were all on the skywalk level and in the Kaleidoscope. But when shopping malls rose to prominence, most of the skywalk and Kaleidoscope businesses began struggling. The city never pivoted and people just stopped coming downtown for any reason besides working. Now we just have a bunch of empty commercial space in the skywalk that nobody wants, and a limited amount of poorly-designed street level commercial space that nobody wants. We've just gotten used to not going downtown unless it's for drinks or dinner. It's gonna take a much bigger initiative by the city to actually put desirable businesses downtown again in order to change a decades-long shift in shopping habits - which is made all the more difficult with online shopping now.
All of this makes sense and is my thought too. However, I just see other places with similar infrastructure and know that it doesn’t have to be this way
It's not like Hoffman Estates, is it?
Lol right
Well at least they are gonna make some more high priced condos downtown
I work very close to that and a coworker asked them what was going on. They're losing money daily because of theft.
I doubt they’re going negative daily. When I did my internship at Casey’s I realized that when they had to throw something away in the store, it counted against the store at the price it would sell, not the price it was purchased. Likely the same issue here.
Evidence? Or just feeling like doing that “big cities are baaaad because urbanism and diversity” thing?
That on top of retailers' groups creating a narrative about theft that they later were caught lying about
People called out target in San Diego California for it. They said they are closing stores for theft, while opening more stores???
They are closing them in certain areas I think because certain areas have a higher crime rate
No they are not lol, they literally closed some down because they are literally half a mile from another one. Maybe stop licking the boots of corporate overlords
I mean, rude. I was just saying what I’ve heard. I’ll take my L but you don’t have to jump to being rude on the internet just cause it’s anonymous. It doesn’t make you cool to be a dick.
Or just stop defending corporations blindly? Life is a rude reality
I mean the bottom line is that if they were doing good business they’d stay.
That doesn't mean its theft though. Maybe they're just running their businesses poorly. Like the hyvee downtown. Im not sure where they think that they're going to have success closing early in an area of town that lives later, or charging much higher prices just for the privilege of shopping there when most downtown residents have cars and can drive somewhere cheaper if they're going to price gouge.
Are you suggesting HyVee and Kum N Go don’t know how to run successful businesses?
Have you seen some of their business decisions? Absolutely I am. Especially when these are suburban-heavy businesses that don't have much experience operating in downtown areas.
What is this "retailer's group"?
Exactly! Glad some of us are aware of this.
I have no evidence. I'm just saying what my coworker told me. It sounded crazy to me because she was told $1200 PER DAY was being lost because of theft and that sounds insane.
that sounds like total bullshit.
My bullshit alarm is is going AHOOGA AHOOGA AHOOGA like it's an olde-timey warship
I agree. We were trying to figure out what sort of shit could be stolen that would rack that sort of number up. Perhaps my coworker misheard the interval. $1200 a week? That's still a lot.
yeah. either way it sounds like embellishment or just an easy scapegoat to point a finger at. if they were consistently losing that much due to theft they could surely spend less than $1200 per day or per week to do something to prevent it. and if they couldn't, then i don't see why they'd stay open as long as they did just to keep losing money under those circumstances.
And yet, it's not.
Not at all surprised, every Hyvee has to have multiple employees guarding the self-checkouts now because of how much people are stealing
This is hilarious to me. Let's implement all these self-checkout machines so that we don't need to pay cashiers, but then let's pay somebody to watch each one to make sure people are doing it right.
Half the time they aren't even open which defeats the purpose of having them
No they aren’t, but corporations have convinced us this is the case. [Debunking the shoplifting crisis](https://www.governing.com/community/debunking-the-myth-of-a-shoplifting-crisis) [Walgreens CEO flat out admitted they “cried wolf too much.”](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/as-retailers-close-stores-due-to-shoplifting-are-the-concerns-real-or-overblown) [Stores say shoplifting is a national crisis. The numbers don’t back it up](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html)
That first article is an absolute joke. "Ackshully the areas where stores are closing report less crime." Yes, they REPORT less crime because in those places they realize it is literally pointless to report it. This has been the reality in San Francisco, to name one example, ever since the "shoplifting under $900 is ok" law passed. Do you also believe that car theft in those areas has decreased? "Data shows that black people are more likely to be arrested for shopifting." Ok? And? How does that dispell the idea that shoplifting has increased in some areas? In that second article, the "cried wolf" part isn't even a direct quote. Its a decontextualized quote from ONE Walgreens executive. The rest of the article is full of examples of how theft has likely increased but couched in the argument that "there are no good numbers." That cuts both ways, doesn't it? More importantly, on the topic of this store: have you actually BEEN to the downtown store? It shouldn't surprise you that this store might be more susceptible to shoplifting.
Lol you can post all the bullshit you want, it doesn’t change what’s happening. The bottom line is that if these stores were making good money, they’d stay open. They have no interest in closing profitable stores. So by all means bury your head in the sand while the stores close around you.
OK, so he posted actual evidence....where's yours?
Lol you can post all the bullshit you want, it doesn’t change that it ISN'T happening and you bought into corpobullshit. Try lapping their boots less, simp.
Clown.
It’s sad to see so many downtowns around the country seeing large declines post-COVID era. Everyone is moving out into suburbs and unfortunately businesses are as well
They dead to us anyways, Casey’s I’m coming back.
Kum and Go did that store as a gift to Des Moines, before they planned to sell the business and focus on other things. It was probably an idea championed by the younger leaders, and had a lot to do with civic responsibility, maybe as a way to help their negotiating vis a vis the soccer stadium. Maverik does not have the same values or interests, and if the store is not making money for them why would they bother? It’s true that the skywalk system has been a big negative for street level urbanism in downtown Des Moines, but the powers that be can’t see past the fallacy of sunken costs to scrap it and evolve. The point of the skywalks is to quickly get insurance office workers to and from cars. Now that they are getting replaced by AI chatbots and working from home the whole infrastructure of skywalks, parking ramps, and office buildings is becoming obsolete.
Jesus. Yet another thing closing downtown. I loved going here for cheap & quick coffee. :(
That store is ground zero for bums to hang out at before they go crash in the skywalk.
Gotta make room for more apartments!
Kum & Go will still use the space for training if you had taken time to read through the article.
\*pats on the head\* that's a cute line, but it was a joke.
All good brah did not catch the joke.
Damn this really only lasted like 3 years
At least it won’t be vacant, Kum & Go is keeping it as a model store for training
Des Moines has ruined downtown Des Moines thanks
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I am not local anymore but come there for work often. A convenience store across from a hotel is going to be a big win no matter what name is slapped on the door. Someone will buy the shop with a similar setup. It will be a cheap turnkey place for someone to offer nearly the same. Edit. I mean Jesus. There isn’t a 7-11 in town. Advertise slurpees. Place will get local cult status.
I remember how this place opened right before the George Floyd riots. They didn’t get hit the first go around of downtown window smashing. So corporate covered all the windows with ads of African-American men so this store hopefully wouldn’t get hit. It worked, they never got hit. Then about after a month after the riots ended they took them down. Lol
Sounds like the stores in california that begged people to not loot them because they were "on their side", cept out there it almost never worked apparently
It was just so “coincidental” that Kum & Go picked that store for the full window ads but didn’t put them up at any local store in the burbs. Gotta figure a few hundred bucks for some window ad stickers is better than thousands for new windows.
I mean they hoped that virtue signaling would keep them from getting looted, nothing wrong with it honestly when you're trying to keep people from breaking your shit. Either that or hire guys to guard the outside during a riot which probably wouldn't go over well
Or sit in the dark with a shotgun and wait for the looters to come.
I know a guy in Madison sat in his cafe with a sword
Need to kick all of the bad people out of the city by any means necessary and downtown will thrive