BLM-Supporting Business Sues Over Losses Caused by BLM

Virtue signaling hypocrisy is on display in Seattle as an ice cream parlor which enthusiastically supported the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that shut down several square blocks of the city, is now suing the city over the damage and loss of business resulting from the shut down.  Jeffery Clark of Fox News reports that during the summer 2020 BLM protests over the death of George Floyd rioters created a BLM zone in a 10-block section of the city where a Molly Moon’s ice cream parlor was located.  The zone was renamed CHOP, (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) after armed protesters barricaded streets and prohibited police and fire-rescue officers from entering.   The city eventually agreed not to allow patrols in the area.  During the 24-day life of CHOP, there were multiple shootings with two deaths along with reports of “narcotics use and violent crime, including rape, robbery, assault, and increased gang activity.”  From June 2 to June 30, Seattle Police logged a 525 percent increase in violent crime compared to June 2019.

Regarding its lawsuit, Molly Moon’s CEO Molly Moon Neitzel told reporters, “At Molly Moon’s we hold race equity at the top of our list of our priorities for how we want to make the world better.  The lawsuit filed on Wednesday, June 7 is not meant to undermine that important message. It’s seeking compensation for the significant revenue losses and team morale impacts we experienced during and for many months after CHOP caused by the City of Seattle’s decision to affirmatively create and assist the CHOP occupation of Capitol Hill, to abandon the police precinct and to stop responding to public safety needs in our beloved Capitol Hill community,” Neitzel said.   The lawsuit claims that it “does not seek to undermine CHOP participants’ message or present a counter message.”  “Rather,” the suit continued, “this lawsuit is about [Molly Moon’s] constitutional and other legal rights of which were overrun by the City of Seattle’s decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public at large, and then materially support and encourage a hostile occupation of that neighborhood.”

Even after CHOP was shut down, Molly Moon’s made it clear that it did not support the police.  A sign was posted to tell officers not enter their shop because their black and brown employees felt “unsafe” in their presence.  At the same time Molly Moon’s declared that it supported divesting funds from Seattle Police.

So let’s try and get this straight, Molly Moon’s is suing the city because city leaders decided to support the same BLM protesters and the actions those protesters took that Molly Moon’s supported.  I would be less than surprised to learn that Molly Moon’s also supported Seattle’s uber-progressive Mayor and City Council members that acquiesced to the protesters demands for a police-free zone.

During the summer of 2020 riots it became abundantly clear that social justice advocates, including BLM and their corporate supporters, democrat politicians and the major media did not give jack about the constitutional rights of anybody living in the communities that BLM and their Antifa brown shirts were trashing.  For some them to now file lawsuits to recover the losses they suffered from these riots is laughable.  Unfortunately, these days it is likely that the city will settle with Molly Moon’s and similar hypocrites.  There is some hint of justice in the fact that the tax dollars to pay for these settlements will come from other Seattle residents who supported and continue to support BLM and other social justice fraudsters.