Opinion | Threatening hotel liquor licenses for housing ICE agents? Bad move.

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Our hospitality industry has weathered recessions, a pandemic, civil unrest and labor shortages. What Minneapolis faces now is completely different. The City Council has placed itself on record as hostile to hospitality, compounding reputational damage and making recovery nearly impossible, by delaying action on renewing liquor licenses for two Minneapolis hotels that have housed federal immigration officers (Business, Feb. 5). In this case it is not federal officials but Minneapolitans who are undermining the city’s economic future.

The City Council is publicly shaming the businesses that helped to rebuild the city after previous crises and will be needed to recharge it after federal activities subside.

The city’s efforts should instead be centered on fighting federal immigrant enforcement in court, providing resources and cultivating hope. It’s time for the eight members of the council who voted to delay the licenses to recognize that none of their spending priorities are possible without a vibrant city that is driven by hospitality and visitors.

Hospitality businesses are an instrumental factor in supporting our local economy. Take note that the city of Minneapolis, in 2024, collected $29.3 million in entertainment taxes, $14.1 million in food and beverage taxes, $11.7 million in lodging taxes, and $6 million in downtown liquor taxes.

That doesn’t even consider the economic impact of the 30,000 jobs that hospitality supports just in the city.

They created jobs in neighborhoods that needed them. They hired, invested and stayed in the community through years when others fled.

And now? Now the city they helped rebuild is dragging their names through the mud, delaying their liquor licenses, for following the law.

City leaders have made passionate arguments about being caught between federal demands and local values. They have discussed the untenable position this creates. They are right. It is an impossible position.

So why can’t they extend that same understanding to local business owners facing the exact same dilemma?

Hotels cannot legally refuse service to guests based on their employer, regardless of their personal beliefs. They cannot demand identification to prove someone doesn’t work for a federal agency. What Minneapolis is asking — what it is punishing these owners for not doing — isn’t just unreasonable; it would blast us back to a pre-Civil Rights, pre-Americans with Disability Act society. On any terms, it is horrific for our city’s economy.

That is what we should stand against. That is the fight worth having.

But publicly shaming local hotel owners? Threatening the livelihoods of your neighbors who are housekeepers, bartenders and front desk clerks? Treating neighborhood businesses like enemy barracks?

These businesses and their employees are nothing more than collateral damage in a battle they did not start and cannot control. Punishing them doesn’t hurt Washington. It only hurts Minneapolis.

Stop the public shaming. Stop the license delays. Stop being anti-neighbor.

Direct your outrage where it belongs — and let Minneapolis rebuild together instead of further tearing itself apart.