Retailers And Restaurants Across The U.S. Close Their Doors Amid Protests

It had only been two days since Lilliannia Ayers reopened her Queen Hippie Gypsy store in downtown Oakland, Calif., before her front window was smashed and her storefront was spray painted Friday. On Saturday night, she and neighbors stayed up all night to protect their stores — hopeful the protest movements across the U.S. would not destroy her business so soon after it suffered a devastating hit from the pandemic shutdown. “It goes beyond the window,” she said. “We’re losing sales every day. We’ve already been impacted by covid. We’ve lost so much more.” Similar scenes of destruction have created chaos and concern along the path of the nation’s protests over the death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis. That’s pushed brick-and-mortar retail and restaurant industries, already hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, to the center. Read more at The Washington Post.