The axe, not tax, has officially, or semi as this is about commerce and even transport, fallen. Like ashes, too, falling down.
First it was in New Richmond and River Falls. The former had at last check a half-dozen businesses close in a two-block area — with another on the opposite side of the street as that matters — and the latter not far behind.
Why do I say the axe is fallen? In Hudson, where there are banks aplenty and see why that could be important in a minute, the first store on main street closed a month ago on the risky west side, another is long gone on the affluent Locust side-street, (revamp project seeks your input), and two more storefronts on Main now have “store closed” signs, as the impact of tariffs are now felt. The shop that was the first to shutter, but still displays a dozen Thank You Hudson paper signs on the storefront, six on the main window and two each on doors on adjoining signs. ran a moderate number of crystals, tarot cards and other alternative spirituality gifts and also offered classes and was looking for spirit guides, so a niche market. It said to see them at their Menomonie store. The other was a more common theme, a small antiques and collectables store. A “for rent” sign asked terms of over $3,000 per month and a three-year term. Ouch! Such rental terms have long been a concern in the downtown and in Hudson in general.
— The signs of the times. Including one on the door of a local tattoo shop. Everyone is welcome here … but I.C.E. (With periods.) For such to come in here, you must have an official warrant. We are exercising such constitutional rights that all, even non-citizens, possess. No harassment or abuse of any type, of any person, will be tolerated. Except quasi-legitimate ad reps. A separate sign, with growing ink drawing, simply says “resist.”
Over at The Purple Tree, a bastion store of social justice, it wasn’t until the bottom corner of a side window that you spy the obligatory insignia Black Lives Matter.
Last-night, over at Packer-perky dive, Dick’s Bar and Grill, a Raider fan who also celebrates the Vikes, and is an ultimate fighter and was a firefighter and EMT and veteran of the mosh pit wars to boot, was celebrating the Round and Round latest signature of QB Kirk Cousins to a new contract. He said you walk into a chronically full stadium after paying a price of near the same amount, so a team has an incentive to go 0-16, (before longer seasons.) Who cares out in Cali? I invoked with this also sage of philosophy the old lefty QB Ken Stabler, he of Glory Days age of swashbuckling and brawling and drinking in the form of Captain Morgan mustering. Later walked in an old scribe of the more local vibe, always with something new to say as an observer on the scene, also sporting a Raider jersey.
On next-morning talk radio in the Twin Cities metro area, singing of this late-day signing news was all the buzz, until about the 10 O’clock hour. By noon, while in a taxi traveling to Easter digs, it had rotated out of the cycle and the talking heads were hyping news out of the Washington D.C. area, with B.S. that had been generated in the a.m. Hell, if I can say that on this Easter weekend, they might as well have been talking about the Packers Jordan Love and who would be his post-signing replacement. —
The furtherly economic theory here is that in Hudson there was enough money to keep businesses hopefully meeting payroll and otherwise afloat for a while. In Trump’s first go-round, there was a big boom for several months, as big business bought the idea that there was going to be a bounty and offered higher, around pandemic, new-hire raises and went for it, up to 20 or at least close. This was followed by an easily a record, for even now and not in the pandemic, number of stores shelved in the downtown. If I considered that district broadly enough, I counted 18 at the high point. Count the ghosts on the string at the new Max’s Social Club, the new Ziggy’s with many signs, which was the new Pudge’s. Although one local hospitality business, a “booming” bar and grill and more in a neighboring berg, just made a point of it to celebrate their 14th anniversary — an unlucky thirteenth year plus one. And new hire rates that were around 13 and change have in many cases reverted to such, or much like it, like at KFC as it competes with other chicken shacks. (But gotta love the buffet that they at least had, as Easter is upon us with a bevy of such. But with beef?) As it sits, and long has in place, new hire rates at Kwik Trip convenience stores, and this may be just overnight hours, are $17 to $19. McDonalds a buck or two less, but they take 16 year olds and I just met a “veteran” server who started at 15. But they at Kwik Trip are an established and adaptable format of success, a rarity in retail these days.
I looked into it and was amazed by what I saw, in this time where rents continue to be very high and home ownership has been down and I’m sure mortgage conditions were less than favorable for most. If you are a small business, as reported across many websites, it is relatively easy to get a “line of credit” for $50,000 or even $100,000. One of the things that matters is how long you’ve been in business. Around ten years, terms should be favorable, but the first loan question you have to answer is whether you’ve been open for, get this, six months or more. Wow. No wonder so many people are throwing their hat in the ring, with new startups, if financial institutions are working this way! Another more nefarious site on the tube hawked well, hawkish rates or less as long as you show sales of at least $200,000. That’s not exactly a small business anymore, those are the kind being bought up in acquisitions to create mega corps with this and even higher sales lines, a move where the courts have often sided with the newly forming monopolies. Such a local small business swallow-up by one not much bigger is beneath near the end of the story.
In New Richmond, the main axe hit the pavement about two years earlier. River Falls much the same, although they’d seen some businesses change hands prior.
All this as the gas crisis maybe not explodes like an Iran oil refinery, or Russian for that matter, but at least simmers here in central U.S., although rates are now nearing $4 and have been a couple of bucks more when you’re Going To California, and saw a killer instrumental plinky version of that on a hospital scrolling peaceful screen recently. But wait, as one of my confidants noted, those trucks that carry the fuel have to refuel in order to deliver. I still love my loved more-mega-than-most Kwik Trip convenience store, but we might not see as many of those big-tube gas semi-trailer-style trucks on the highway soon, like the one I spied after midnight the other night. Or is this why it was traveling so late, although I know commerce continues beyond bar closing time. But those other stores open in the downtown mostly hospitality district on Main Street also rely on oil and its derived products.
On a related note, there are new businesses that have opened in the Hudson downtown, granted in not prime spots, one spewing beer and especially cool cocktails, but little food off around the corner on their side street as the High Dive Inn, (with a tie-in the up the street The Nova), the other a yet- mid-big-block ‘nother Irish pub revamp, Kelly’s, with opening set for May, but we know they deliver beer better than on that promise. They unlike The Dive answer phones, but are keeping really busy.
But Max’s Social Club, the new Ziggy’s which had one sale and was Pudge’s before that, had a semi this morning pulled up to the Hop N Barrel spot they bought just up the road, OK along the long street parking spot, that had two long and soon to be high electric signs that said Max’s, and patterned after Ziggy’s, on its trailer. At 7:20 a.m. Two workers, one a man without hat, also walked the main parking area, minutes earlier.
A crucial difference? It is a much bigger and older business.
My April Fool’s Day Joke? Now that the new Max’s has up its two Orpheum style signs, and two square ones for parking with just as much square footage, including one across the street in a long-abandoned bank lot, the addition of a more typical size sign along the front wall means it has run afoul of the city sign ordinance. Haha! But this is no joke, why not also take over the shuttered bank building that lies opposite, as part of the lot, along with the acquisition of the Hop N Barrel that shutdown in fall, and fully corner the market on Hudson entertainment.