Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Where's the Beef? Not in South Mpls.
Landlords! Not even our hot dogs are safe from them. Chicago Taste Authority, a south Minneapolis fixture near 42nd & Hiawatha (previously as Chris & Rob’s) for decades, revealed to Jason DeRusha earlier this summer that their rent had leapt from $1,800 to a beefy $6,000. As a result, the joint will sling its final Italian beef sandwiches and hot dogs in this location on September 21, the owners announced on Facebook, though owner Rob Dubnecay hopes to open somewhere else in the metro area. This is a real loss—our tasters considered CTA’s Italian beef sandwich the third best in the Twin Cities when Racket published its official ranking in 2022. And I’m starting to notice that the more businesses close, the higher commercial rents rise. I’m no economist, but that don’t seem right.
Nowhere Is My Home
The Minneapolis City Council is taking up several proposals related to homelessness even as the mayor’s office seems to lack a comprehensive policy to address the issue beyond clearing encampments and chasing residents out only to create a new camp (which will eventually be cleared as well).
Agate Housing & Services, which houses about 80 homeless residents each night, is set to close in early October, a loss of beds that Minneapolis can hardly afford. And so, MPR News reports, Council Members Jason Chavez, Jamal Osman, and Elliott Payne have proposed a $1.5 million emergency grant—about half of what Agate needs to continue—in hopes that “governmental partners” will make up the difference. "As encampments continue to be shuffled around our city, we cannot afford to lose critical transitional housing and shelter services,” Chavez says. “We need to do everything in our power to create more capacity, not less.”
The City Council is also considering an ordinance amendment, sponsored by Council Members Aurin Chowdhury, Aisha Chughtai, and Jason Chavez, that would require the city to keep data on encampment clearings—how many, when and where they took place, the number of people affected—and make the findings available online. The city would also have to track whether those affected by clearings are connected to housing options, what happens to their belongings, and when they learned of the clearing. “We need to be responsible for how your taxpayer dollars are being spent, especially if they are being spent in a way that could be potentially harmful to unhoused individuals, individuals in a neighborhood or our city staff,” Chowdhury says.
Finally, to conclude today’s homelessness news roundup, an update on St. Anne’s Place in north Minneapolis, the site of a recent clash between shelter residents and neighbors. The Strib’s Susan Du reports that security footage confirms the allegations of St. Anne’s residents, with a camera catching neighbors “pursuing residents across the front yard of the property before slugging two closed doors of the shelter with a bat, causing glass to burst into the main hallway of St. Anne’s Place, with women holding babies on just the other side.” She also notes that police statements regarding the incident have been inconsistent and contradictory.
Whose OPE Is It Anyway?
After Gov. Tim Walz became the Democrat’s VP candidate, Wisconsin's Minocqua Brewing Co. began marketing "OPE: A Lager With Big Dad Energy" with a rendering of the guv on the can. But before you could say… well, “ope,” OPE! Brewing in West Allis, Wisconsin, unwilling to let Minocqua just squeeze on past them, sued, alleging trademark infringement, reports KARE 11. In response, Minocqua has rebranded its beer as “Big Dad Energy: A Vice Presidential Beer.” But forget the lawsuit: Our concern here is that both of these breweries are in Wisconsin. UNESCO should clearly step in and protect Minnesota from such an unforgivable case of… cultural apprOPEreation.
Report: Duluth Is on a Hill
Jay Gabler of the Duluth News Tribune has made an incredible discovery: The city of Duluth is located on a hill. As we used to say online: big if true! Seriously, though, Gabler makes a strong case that what’s distinctive about Duluth isn't Lake Superior—lots of cities rest on large bodies of water—but the elevation that provides such a memorable vista. To make his point, Gabler invokes another city on a hill. "I've learned to expect mockery if I compare Duluth to San Francisco," he writes, "but I've heard others evoke the same comparison." Of course, you can't compare the two cities—for starters, you might be able to afford waterlogged property in SF 20 years from now. I know we’ve got a few Duluthians reading this right now, so please weigh in below.
