DAYTON, Ohio—While many protests over the past week have caused damage to many small businesses, business owners in the Oregon District say that’s the least of their worries. The Oregon District Business Association came together to support the Black Lives Matter Movement.
While protesters walked the streets of the Oregon District over the weekend some businesses were damaged. But business owners gathered on Thursday afternoon saying that despite economic loss they still support the movement.
What You Need To Know
- Business owners in the Oregon District came together to share they support the protesters
- While some of the protests have damaged some of the businesses, they say they understand the movement is much bigger than a broken window
- The business owners are also concerned with incidents of racial injustice in the area
Lily’s Bistro was one of those businesses damaged. But the owner says, she stands with those protesters, including the one that threw a rock through the window of her own business.
“It hurts to have people make physical damage against a building that you have worked so hard to create that you love and to build something in the community,” Emily Mendenhall the owner of Lily’s Bistro said. “But again I want to state that I am not angry at the person that threw the rock. Rather we wish to use our voices as business owners to amplify the voices that are not being heard.”
Lily’s Bistro along with many other business in the Oregon district closed early on Saturday, not because of the protests but because of another troubling act right outside their doors. Business owners say two white men were carrying guns, hitting people with them and even showing the Nazi salute. This comes less than a year after a mass shooting in the same district left nine people dead.
“Shame on those two white men who came down here with guns after less than a year ago a gun wielding murderer came down here and laid blood and bodies in our streets,” Bethany Ramsey the owner of Puff Apothecary said.
“This is troubling for many reasons,” Mendenhall said. “Not least of which is that we’re a community trying our best to recover form the trauma of the mass shooting last August fourth. Or that the Oregon district seeks to provide a safe, welcoming and inclusive space.”
Business owners want the community to know they condemn these acts and stand with the protesters.
“We have a social and moral obligation to tell these men and women who seek to destroy black people that not only are they not welcome here in the distract or in the city of Dayton, they are not welcome in our society,” Ramsey said.
We reached out to Dayton police to see if there was an arrest in this specific incident, but they said they weren’t aware of one. But there were 43 arrests on Saturday.
