Both Cowboy Slims in Uptown Minneapolis and Cowboy Jacks in Downtown Minneapolis have closed with no predicted reopening date amidst ongoing violence in the city.
Both of the popular bars are owned by the After Midnight Group which says that it chose to shutter the establishments after after the bars experienced “violence, vandalism and unsafe working conditions firsthand, and without receiving assurances of safety from city officials,” per WCCO.
Cowboy Slims is located just yards away from the 2900 block of Hennepin Avenue South, the site of a shooting last week that injured 11 and claimed the life of 1 more. The bar was also damaged during the George Floyd riots, per the Star Tribune.
“You don’t feel safe,” Michael Juberian, a regular at Slims told WCCO. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know who’s around the corner. It’s a weird time.”
Meanwhile, over 190 people have been shot during the chaos since the George Floyd riots began, per the Tribune. This marks a 47% increase from the amount of shootings seen during this time period last year.
Some people believe that it was actually coronavirus, not the wave of riotous violence, that caused Cowboy Slims and Cowboy Jacks to close their doors, despite the owner’s clear statement to the contrary.
Cowboy Jacks along with the Kollege Klub were connected to 30 cases between of COVID-19 between June 14 and 21— prompting Ilhan Omar’s District Director to crack a joke about the situation.
I would imagine this is not the first virus outbreak to be traced back to Cowboy Jacks.
— Kendal Killian (@KendalKillian) June 26, 2020
1,425 Minnesotans have succumbed to the virus as of June 28, per the Department of Health. A graph provided by Google showing the daily number of new COVID-19 related deaths in the state seems to indicate that Minnesota is doing better in terms of coronavirus mortality now than it has previously.
Kyle Hooten
Kyle Hooten is Managing Editor of Alpha News. His coverage of Minneapolis has been featured on television shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight and in print media outlets like the Wall Street Journal.
