GOVERNOR PRITZKER IS GOING TO RUN OUT OF BUSINESSES TO TAX.

The signs were present in April, when the lie of "fifteen days to slow the spread" became clear to Strong Towns diarist Christian Elliott.

Just a month before, I was sitting in Theo’s Java Club in downtown Rock Island, Illinois, drinking a cappuccino out of a chipped mug while writing my senior thesis as a parade of regulars flowed in and out of the shop around me, the bells on the door jingling to announce the entrance and exit of each character. In a world full of fast food restaurants and drive-through coffee shops, places like Theo’s, with its glowing neon coffee cup sign, blue striped awning, and year-round Christmas lights, feel like incredibly special and fragile things. Theo’s is a pond, a forest, a delicate ecosystem in a warming world, held together only by the people who believe in what it stands for.

The drive-through at the McDonald's just wasn't the same.

Yesterday, I was met by a cardboard sign taped to the glass that read “Closed Indefinitely Due to COVID-19.” I had known this day was coming since Illinois’s governor issued the stay-at-home order on March 17th, but once it did, the pandemic felt very real. Theo’s has only closed its doors one other time in the 26 years since it opened, and that was for a record-breaking blizzard. Then, Theo, the café’s mustached namesake, reopened the café in a few days. This time, with no end to the pandemic in sight, I hope Theo can afford to reopen once the coast is clear.

As of this afternoon, it appears that Theo's are serving again; and (the essay being in Strong Towns) the business infrastructure of the Quad Cities was under attack by Our Political Masters long before the racetrack magnate decided to run for governor.

Theo’s is one of only a few small businesses left downtown in the group of blocks Rock Islanders call “The District” neighborhood. The District died slowly. The first blow came courtesy of the Federal Highway Administration—a wide high-speed road called the Centennial Expressway that bypassed the heart of Rock Island and cut the city’s majority-Black West End neighborhood in half. Single-use zoning and the car-centric urban planning epidemic of the 1960s further decimated Rock Island’s downtown. One by one, auto dealerships, supermarkets, and new creations of American capitalism—strip malls, fast food restaurants, and giant indoor malls—followed traffic to the new highways.

Chicago was also dying slowly, even before J. B. Pritzker and Lori Lightfoot and their dependent voters had all summer to wreck the place.  This article, from July, makes no mention of that assault on independent businesses.

Chicagoans have watched for months as “For Sale” and “For Rent” signs popped up in the windows of their favorite coffee joints and neighborhood bars, and they’ve wondered whether treasured restaurants ever will reopen.

A tally is in: The coronavirus pandemic has forced an estimated 4,400 businesses in the Chicago area to close, including 2,400 that say they won’t reopen.

That's the fate of metropolitan businesses elsewhere. "The Chicago area has suffered the fourth-highest number of closures among the nation’s metro areas, behind Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco." Let's defer to another day whether residents of those cities might start thinking about their masks as Biden muzzles, and contemplate their voting habits.

Around DeKalb, the public health officials have been chastising the naughty boys for some time.

Jeff Dobie, owner of Fatty’s Pub & Grille in DeKalb, said he’s had to let nearly 40 employees go in the past almost one-year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and he’s asking for the community and health officials to ‘give us a chance.’

“Support your local restaurants,” Dobie said. “You’ll miss us when we’re gone. I’m not advocating for packed bars, DJs, or anything like that. I’m advocating to give people a social outlet, something they can do.”

The public health officials are not, so far, impressed.

Dobie’s establishment is one of the 31 DeKalb County bars and restaurants on the DeKalb County Health Department’s public watchlist for failing to suspend indoor dining services as required by Gov. JB Pritzker’s executive order, according to the county health department’s online resurgence mitigation tracker.

Also included on the list are: PJ’s Courthouse Tavern at 202 W. State St. in Sycamore; Rise ‘N Shine Family Restaurant at 1640 DeKalb Avenue in Sycamore; Rambo’s Bar & Grill at 140 W. Market St. in Somonauk; Country Kitchen at 105 W. Market St. in Somonauk; Sycamore Cafe at 1170 DeKalb Avenue in Sycamore; El Jimador Mexican Grill at 260 E. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb; Route 34 Pub & Grub at 1201 E. Church St. in Sandwich; Sam Family Restaurant at 11 W. North Avenue in Cortland; MVP’s at 124 S. California St. in Sycamore; DeRailed Bar at 48 E. Railroad St. in Sandwich; Sidetrack Bar and Grill at 1 S. Main St., in Sandwich; Hobbnobbers at 2030 Baron Drive in Sycamore; Egg Haven at 2562 Sycamore Road in DeKalb; Kirkland Family Restaurant at 507 W. Main St. in Kirkland; Remington’s Gastro Pub at 102 S. Third St. in Malta; Genoa Veterans Home at 311 S. Washington St. in Genoa; Los Racheros Authentic Mexican Restaurante at 2350 Sycamore Road in DeKalb; Rosita’s Mexican Restaurant at 642 E. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb (which opened the week of Christmas for indoor dining); Omi Sushi at 3206 DeKalb Avenue in DeKalb; The Sycamore Parkway at 605 E. State St. in Sycamore; Brown Pub at 200 Cr-10 in Hinckley; Somonauk Pancake House at 740 E. Market St. in Somonauk; R&R Pub at 109 W. Comanche Avenue in Shabbona; Pub West at 100 E. Adams Street in Waterman; Los Panchos Mexican Grill & Cafe at 1470 Peace Road in Sycamore; French Toast Pancake House at 831 South Fourth Street in DeKalb; Red Brick Inn Bar & Grill at 500 W. Main St. in Kirkland; Bull Moose Bar & Grille at 2020 S. Main St. in Sandwich; Minnihan’s at 209 W. Main St. in Genoa; and Five Points Pub at 105 Main St. in Kingston.

Don't you love that "online resurgence mitigation tracker?" George Orwell invites all the local Karens to denounce their neighbors.  Pho 'n Grill, on the other hand, complied with all the mitigations, and that proved to be the end.  "The restaurant was temporarily closed since Oct. 27 due to COVID-19 pandemic mitigation regulations, which had banned indoor dining from Oct. 3 through Monday, Jan. 18."  That closure is now permanent.  There's a lot of retail space available in the strip malls around the area, but who is going to be interested in leasing it?