Co-founder of Reopen Minnesota Coalition: State's lockdowns are 'so over the top'

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Businesses across Minnesota team up to fight shutdown

Co-founder of Reopen Minnesota Coalition Darius Teichrow pushes for small businesses to defy coronavirus restrictions.

Minnesota's coronavirus lockdowns are "so over the top," co-founder of Reopen Minnesota Coalition Darius Teichroew said on Thursday.

"We decided with these businesses that the situation is too desperate to remain closed. Our governor just extended another month on bars and restaurants and he said yesterday that it wasn’t about enforcement, that no one would be getting arrested," Teichroew told "America’s Newsroom."

Teichroew said Minnesota is "surrounded by states that are largely open, and their data and caseload is exactly the same slope and trajectory." Teichroew said it was clear the lockdowns "just are not working."

150 MINNESOTA BUSINESSES VOW TO DEFY COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS: 'AN ILLEGAL AND UNLAWFUL ORDER'

Reopen Minnesota Coalition is an effort that began in the spring, consisting of 150 bars, restaurants, gyms and other businesses that plan to defy coronavirus restrictions even if Minneapolis Gov. Tim Walz, D., extends his latest orders.

"[The] Wall Street Journal called it a restaurant lockdown massacre and we completely agree," Teichroew said. "It is so over the top and now to go after these individuals, these innocent individuals, particularly single parents at Christmastime. Where are the kids going to go if they get incarcerated? It is so over the top, especially in consideration of how they stood back and watched Minneapolis burn this summer, and now they are doing this?"

Teichroew's comments came after a group of restaurant owners in Minnesota refused to back down as the state may adopt new coronavirus restrictions. Small business proprietors across the country have had to deal with the economic reckoning brought on by pandemic shutdowns in 2020.

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Walz closed bars, restaurants and fitness centers for four weeks on Nov. 20 as coronavirus cases and deaths reached record numbers in the state, according to local reports.