by Pafoua Yang
A bar praised for trying to challenge the public’s perception of downtown Minneapolis as dangerous was broken into, early Monday morning.
Ties Lounge & Rooftop is a recent startup that features four floors where people can congregate to drink and enjoy food. “We really want this place to be a place of healing for people, where people can come back and sit back and enjoy themselves and meet new people, network” one of Ties’s five original cofounders said in a March interview with Fox 9. MinnPost has also profiled the establishment, explaining that the founders “were driven to action by the murder of George Floyd,” taking over a space left vacant after the previous tenants were run out of business by “perceptions of crime.”
One of the Ties bartenders even told Alpha News in March that downtown Minneapolis is “very, very safe.” She continued: “Everything is coming back now after the pandemic and it is like this entire resurgence of downtown and it’s been incredible and it’s only going to go up from here.”
However, crime became more than just a perceived issue for Ties yesterday when Minneapolis Police dispatchers received a call that the bar was “broken into.” The call came around 4:30 a.m. when the cleaning crew discovered the alleged break in.
Crime Watch Minneapolis, a local police scanner watchdog, reported on the ensuing radio traffic:
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Report of bar burglary discovered by the cleaning crew about 4:30 a.m., #MplsDowntown.
9xx Nicollet Mall pic.twitter.com/hKorNQwxVN— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) May 16, 2022
Alpha News called Ties to get more information about what happened, but the manager on duty didn’t know anything about the situation. Bar ownership has not responded for comment.
Alpha News also reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department and did not hear back.
While the business only opens until 12 a.m. Sundays, one of the managers told Alpha News the cleaning crew typically gets there around 4 a.m.
So far this year, as of Monday, there have been 765 burglaries in Minneapolis with 80 of them in the downtown area (1st precinct), according to the Minneapolis crime dashboard.
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Pafoua Yang is a reporter for Alpha News. She has worked as an on-air reporter for stations across the Twin Cities.
Photo “Ties Lounge & Rooftop” by Ties Lounge & Rooftop.
