“Kind of raw”

State Street businesses, hard hit by vandalism and looting, board up and carry on

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While few State Street businesses have remained untouched from the past few days of unrest downtown, one of the hardest hit stores has been Fontana Sports, 216 N. Henry St., which only re-opened its doors to customers on May 21 after the COVID-19 shutdown. The store, which has been in business right off State Street since 1972, was broken into and looted the nights of May 30, May 31 and June 1, says co-owner John Hutchison. Store video shows people breaking in the glass the first night “and about 30 people came in and started taking merchandise,” says Hutchison. Then “they stopped,” says Hutchison. “It’s not clear what happened.”

On Sunday night, with the front doors boarded shut, the crowd pulled at the doors until the locks broke, and left “with armloads of stuff.” Monday night, Hutchison says a crowd of 40 to 50 people were more bent on destruction. “They were smashing everything,” including display cases and computers and tipping over file cabinets in the office. Intruders also left with the safe, which weighs some 400 pounds, says Hutchison. Tuesday, Hutchison brought in a U-Haul and cleaned out everything that was left, “anything that had any value.” 

Fontana has started a GoFundMe page. “It breaks our heart to report our store, Fontana Sports, has been destroyed by looting and vandalism, all on the tail of having to be closed for 60+ days due to COVID-19 state restrictions,” writes co-owner Elizabeth Ganser on the page.  Ganser acknowledges that right now there are “many individuals and organizations in need” and says that the funds raised will be used to help pay for the plywood used to board up the store, to “take care of our staff” and eventually to open their doors again.

Hutchison feels there needs to be more police presence downtown now. “Put police on every corner. They could station officers up and down the street, so they could see when 40 people are pulling open [a business’] doors.” Hutchison says the police “do not seem to be on top of their game.”

As it is, protesters seem to be playing a cat-and-mouse game: “They go around the block, converge, and do it again,” says Hutchison, while the police are on a different block.

Hutchison says four people were arrested for looting at Fontana, and says he was told that “they were all from Janesville.” 

Although he has removed everything of value from the premises, he’s still worried things can get worse: “Next they’re going to start burning things.”

In a statement released late today, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway says that after a peaceful protest concluded Monday, violence broke out: “Molotov cocktails were used, stores were looted with hammers and bats, shots were fired, crowbars were used to attack individuals. This is not protest. This is dangerous criminal behavior.”

“Painfully,” she adds, “many of our wonderful stores on State Street were heavily damaged yet again. This type of criminal conduct is never acceptable. It threatens the safety of the public and of the many people who live above the stores on State Street and on surrounding streets. It destroys the livelihood of business owners and employees. I support the police in their efforts to address this very difficult and very dangerous law enforcement challenge.”

Rhodes-Conway emphasizes that while she welcomes protest, “I do not want legitimate protests to continue to provide cover for this violent, unacceptable behavior.” The mayor urged people to stay at home Tuesday night.

Short Stack Eatery, nearby at 301 W. Johnson at the corner of Johnson, State, and Henry streets, posted on its Instagram on June 2 that “We got smashed up and robbed pretty good last night.” But the restaurant, which has long posted politically progressive messages in its windows, used its social media feed to offer support to the protests: “BLACK LIVES MATTER, this destruction is just noise. Windows can be fixed and stuff replaced. The ONLY thing we need to be focusing on right now is BLACK PAIN.” The post encouraged readers to support two local organizations, Urban Triage and Freedom, Inc., that have been leading the protests.

Other businesses, escaping property damage on Saturday and Sunday nights, decided to board up on Monday.

“We had two nights where nothing happened, so we were feeling very thankful,” says Laura Komai, who owns the gift shop Anthology, 230 State St., with her sister, Sachi.

“Then we started wondering, are we being reckless and careless” by not preemptively boarding up the storefront, says Komai. “Our mother used the term ‘naive.’”

But the decision to cover the store’s large glass windows with plywood June 1 was not easy. “It felt like we were putting up a wall. The window is how we communicate with people,” says Komai of the displays that often feature cards, posters and art that support progressive political sentiments. Especially now that the store is open for shopping in only a limited fashion due to COVID-19 restrictions (the shop is open 10 am-4 pm by appointment only for one person to shop, with a mask), Komai felt that the window was especially important. But ultimately the sisters decided erecting the plywood was the wiser course. “‘Out of an abundance of caution,’” says Komai. “That phrase wasn’t even a part of my life before March. Now, it’s everything.”

Komai says that she knows how small businesses are suffering but also feels that “the city has failed a lot of people in a lot of ways” and understands why protests are happening. She says Anthology is “committed to Madison, to doing the work, to continue to elevate black and indigenous voices and people of color.”

Next door, Amy Moore, who owns Little Luxuries, agrees that boarding up the storefront was a difficult decision, balancing protecting her business and livelihood with “how to send a message of support” to those protesting the death of George Floyd and other police violence toward people of color.

Today Moore is having artists create positive messages on the plywood; the State Street side of her shop will say “Stronger together” while the Johnson Street windows will say “Create the world you want.”

Moore wanted the plywood to send some kind of message other than “Here we are protecting ourselves.” 

“I wanted to hold on to our humanity.”

Moore supports Black Lives Matter and racial justice, but also sees “angst coming from somewhere else,” noting the presence of anarchy symbols among the graffiti. She’s concerned that is “diluting the message when it should be focused somewhere else.”

Little Luxuries had been open for shopping appointments since restrictions were eased last week, but now, with the situation so fluid, she is open limited hours and asking shoppers to call first to see if it’s a good time to come in. Only five people, who have to live within the same household, can be in the shop together.

Faycal Belakhdar, who owns Mediterranean Cafe at 625 State Street, says that he was lucky for the first nights of the State Street unrest. A sign on the glass door of the cafe read: “Owned by minority. Small business for social justice. Black Lives Matter!”

 He closed the restaurant altogether on June 1, a day when State Street was like “a construction zone,” with so many windows being boarded up. His plywood went up late, after 6 p.m. on June 1, but he feels it was “a good idea.” Surrounding businesses that hadn’t yet been vandalized were hit overnight between June 1 and 2. “They got the windows they missed the day before,” he says. “It’s like they came back to finish the job.” 

Belakdhar has been doing delivery and curbside delivery through the COVID-19 shutdown of in-house dining, and says that the community’s response has been “very supportive.” Now, he says, the problem is he doesn’t know what to expect when he heads into the restaurant every day, although “So far, it’s been okay.” 

He decided to close on June 1 because things felt “kind of raw,” noting that some of his workers have been upset and he wanted them to be able to relax a little longer. “You have to be happy to open. I didn’t want to be unhappy inside and open. We’re open today because life is not supposed to stop. We have to continue.”

Jason Ilstrup, president of Downtown Madison Inc., estimates that 80% to 90% of State Street businesses are now boarded up. He says his group and the Madison Central Business Improvement District have been working closely with area businesses and communicating with city staff, the police department and protest organizers “to make sure everyone understands the situation that is happening.” Business owners are also being helped with such things as insurance claims.

Ilstrup stresses that this work is being done “all while trying to help support the very important protests happening downtown. Downtown has a long history of supporting these protests and I think that is admirable.”

“It’s very clear that so many in our community are in pain right now,” he adds. “So many of our friends and coworkers and neighbors in the black community, they continue to be in crisis. Couple that with what’s happened with COVID-19 and you see the horrifying disparate impacts we’re seeing on people of color. I think this becomes a very volatile situation. People are  wanting real change.”

Ilstrup says it also needs to be remembered that people live on State Street, in the very buildings being targeted for damage. “We need to be paying attention to that closely. The residents could be hurt if they are living upstairs. There are people one flight up the stairs.” 

[Judith Davidoff contributed to this report.]