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A committee within the Minneapolis City Council has delayed the renewal of liquor licenses for two hotels in the city’s downtown area, citing concerns that agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are staying at the hotel during the Trump administration’s ongoing “Operation Metro Surge” immigration raids.
The “Committee of the Whole” (a committee that includes every member of the city council) met on Tuesday with the goal of discussing liquor license renewals for dozens of businesses throughout Minneapolis. More than 100 licenses were renewed, but renewals for the two hotels in question — Hilton Minneapolis-Mill District and The Depot Minneapolis — were stalled until the next meeting later this month, on February 17.
The vote was 8-5 in favor of delaying the renewals.
The delay does not halt liquor operations at those locations for the time being, but it does allow for more discussion on whether their licenses should be revoked. Council members in favor of the delay said their decision was based on comments they received from constituents, who have expressed concerns about ICE agents’ activities in and around the hotels, including nuisance complaints and drunk driving by off-duty agents.
“I think it’s really important that we get to have some further discussions amongst each other, and I also think it’s important that the public has an opportunity to share the stories that are coming out of hotels that have ICE agents within them,” council member Aurin Chowdhury said at the meeting.
Council member Aisha Chughtai agreed, stating:
What we’re seeing happen in real time in hotels that have these types of contracts with the federal government is at night, when agents come back from their being out and about, beating people up, separating families and abducting people for fun all day, they drink heavily at the bar and have weapons on them.
Chughtai cited an incident where “a drunk agent who’s not on duty has pulled a weapon on a resident of our city.”
“That is danger, that is a real danger to public safety in our community and so necessitates us having further conversations to try to figure out how we can ensure greater public safety for the residents that we serve,” Chughtai added.
The hotels have been the sites of demonstrations by residents who are fed up with the nearly 3,000 DHS agents who have been sent to the Twin Cities by the Trump administration to terrorize, abduct, and deport people.
Despite council members stating a desire to discuss the issue further, revoking liquor licenses from the hotels would be a challenge, one attorney for the city said, as the hotels appear to be complying with all licensing laws, and the council would need more substantive facts to take their licenses away.
Still, the council could take actions that would result in licenses being revoked, including changing some rules on who can get licensed. Changing licensure rules isn’t out of the ordinary, Council President Elliott Payne said, adding that the committee should have a “fact-based conversation” on the matter.
While some council members expressed concerns about a potential lawsuit, as well as a need to be fair about the process, others expressed dismay at demonstrators, with one member derogatorily describing them as “agitators.” That characterization prompted a sharp rebuttal from Council Vice President Jamal Osman, who is a Somali immigrant.
“Our president called us garbage and sent troops here to terrorize us. Agitators are our heroes,” Osman said.
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