Can Drive-Thrus Save Us From Carjackings?

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily 1 p.m.(ish) digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.

Strib Commenter: Burger King Is Our Last Line of Defense Against Crime

Is there a more forceful way of saying “never”? Never-ever? N-E-V-E-R? NNNNNNNEEEEEEEVVVVVVEEEER? Because if the first rule of the internet is to never read the comments, we need a stronger self-imposed prohibition against reading the Strib comment section, which is basically Stormfront for Seniors. But sometimes when you plunge your hand into the muck you can pull out a gem, and today we found a whopper. A Double Whopper with cheese even.

There’s currently a dispute between the city of Minneapolis and the owner of two Burger Kings over whether the restaurants, by staying closed since April 2018, have forfeited their rights to operate drive-thrus, since those are now banned by the city for newly opened establishments. The Strib covered this issue thoroughly,  but naturally the commenters were less interested in the details here and more concerned with discussing their two chief obsessions: crime and the importance of driving cars as much as possible. Hats off, then, to "the lone stranger," who managed to connect them both.

Makes you think! I would have said the best defense against carjacking is not driving, or maybe even not owning a car. But I stand corrected: Everyone keep eating in your car till all the crime is gone. 

Williams Uptown Pub and Peanut Bar Closes Temporarily, Indefinitely

There’s one less place to eat peanuts in Uptown today. Smash some shells in honor of Williams Uptown Pub and Peanut Bar. Located on Hennepin near Lagoon for fifty-some years, the bar announced Friday afternoon on Facebook that “just like many other Uptown businesses” it will be closed “for an indefinite period… while we take a much needed break” on Facebook. According to Fox 9, this closure follows an incident in which “a shooting … grazed its building early Friday morning, leaving one injured and front windows shattered.” I’d much need a break after that too, I suppose. 

MN Man Flown to Texas for COVID Care Dies

The story of Scott Quiner, the Covid-19 patient whose family flew him to Texas after a Minnesota hospital tried to remove him from a ventilator, made national headlines. On Saturday, MPR News reports, Quiner died. The Buffalo, Minnesota man had been on a ventilator at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids since before Thanksgiving, and when the facility announced that it would take him off the machine, the family got a court order to prevent the removal. Four days after the court ruling, however, Quiner’s family flew him to Texas to receive care. The Quiner family’s lawyer said he was not sure if they would be taking legal action.   

Psst, You Can Sneak Into the U.S. Through the Northern Border Too

Four Indian citizens died of exposure in Canada last week, presumably while attempting to cross illegally into the United States. That got Minnpost’s Greta Kaul a-wonderin’, and she took a closer look into illegal border crossings from Canada to the U.S., which occur more often than you might expect. Some takeaways: Border Patrol apprehends hundreds of people each year, and the second-most numerous group of people caught, after Mexicans, are Romanians. And because it’s MinnPost there are all sort of cool charts and graphs. As for the question of why anyone would prefer the U.S. to Canada, given the state of affairs? They probably have family here. 

Yeah, Sorry, the Timberwolves Are Totally Moving to Seattle