It’s been difficult and we tried opening like six or eight stores in the beginning in 2021. It was ugly. I’m going to read that super chat shortly. Jdubs. We can’t do business. And while some people have come back to work, Lee Kwan, who started in Ranley’s Deli, says those customers are mainly there just three days a week for a breakfast and lunch shop in or near San Francisco’s financial district.

He says that doesn’t pay the bills. Lee points to inflation, the multiple minimum wage hikes in recent years in San Francisco, and a lack of support from city and state leaders. After Covid, did they do anything to really help us? No. What things they did were insufficient to deal with the problem. We needed people to come back in and we needed to homeless people out. When pandemic hit, we had twelve stores.

Let’s say each one of those stores was stocked for food that would last a couple of weeks, up to a month. So when we could not open all that food ended up going into a garbage can. Wednesday night we spoke with San Francisco mayor London Breed about the current struggle in the financial district. Revitalization takes time. We’ve been through a global pandemic. Shopping patterns have changed and so we need to adjust to that.

And we need to reduce all the fees and taxes and barriers that make it difficult for people to thrive in business in San Francisco. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Lee, who is now New York, I’m always amazed at how bubbly and how fake some of these politicians are. A lot of y’all are not familiar with London Breed, but I actually did a segment on London breed, or actually I did a few segments on London Breed late last year because she was championing the Alphabet community more than she was championing what was going on over in San Francisco.

What do you mean? Leave your hometown, Oakland, alone. Time out. I’m not doing anything but documenting and speaking on the issues that are happening in the community from a business perspective, because I understand that it comes back down to the money and you know, what’s preventing the money from coming into a lot of these places. These legislators like London Breed. London Breed, another female mayor that’s going to give you the fake smile.

And they cannot in any way, shape or form actually tell you how they’re doing things to help manage the city and give better opportunities and removing all of the barriers to entry, including homelessness, including all the red tape to get your business open. See, one thing that we don’t talk about is we don’t talk about all of the repercussions that came along with people shutting everything down. When you think about Texas, when you think about Miami and Florida, businesses boomed.

They got back popping immediately. Whenever it was that they got through that initial pandemic, shutdown, it was open. As a matter of fact, it was so open that I decided to move down there for like four months straight. And I got the heck out of Michigan. Do you know how many people, businesses absolutely got destroyed because of all of these policies and these issues, and they never came back.

They never survived, and nobody cared anything about it. They spend more money helping and solving for a fake migrant crisis. Oh, we going to get to that migrant crisis today than they do on actually helping the people that’s employing and putting money into the coffers, such as business owners. And when you see a business have to close that’s been open for 40 years, 40 years, that should tell you something.

Thrive in business in San Francisco. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Lee, who is now nearly 80, says he’s leaned on faith and family in the last few months. We even had a good laugh when I learned that he still has dim sum in his freezer leftovers after his final two stores closed. He’s holding his head up high for lasting 40 years and remembering the good times with family.

If I had to do it again, I’ll go to the Richmond district. I’ll go sunset. I’ll go out one of the neighborhoods. Yeah, and help it out there. Not in downtown. It’s over for places like San Francisco, y’all. Just not familiar yet. It’s over for places like San Francisco. You know where else is over at here? Let me show you where these vacancies are exploding. If you’ve been downtown recently, you’ve no doubt noticed more empty storefronts along Chicago’s iconic state streets.

Artera Molina learned there are more vacancies there than ever before as the downtown area tries to make a post Covid comeback. We saw old Navy close and move out last year. Today that space is still vacant, and that’s just one example. But the folks we connected with in reporting this story say hope is not lost here on State street. It’s more than just the heart of the loop.

State street is a cultural anchor shopping destination and an important part truck. But the great street so important to this city, well, it’s seen better days. 50% of the storefronts on the east side of State street are vacant. Do you know how bad that that is? I don’t think you all realize how bad that is. A city that prides itself on tourism is dealing and grappling with an over 50% vacancy rate on the east side of the street.

Collectively, well over 33%. One out of every three stores and every three locations, which also. It’s not just about the stores, it’s not just about the jobs. It’s not just about the taxes that’s collected as a result of it. It’s not just about the tourism. It’s not just about the reputation of the city. The commercial real estate industry is then interdependent on these places in order to continue to thrive.

So when you start to see the dominoes start to fall, and they’re focused so much on the things that don’t matter, and they are kicking the can down the road. 50% is insane. It’s crazy. 50%. Let’s put that in perspective, y’all. One open, one close, one open. One close, one open. And the ones that’s open, they dealing with retail theft, they dealing with fraud, they dealing with violence, they dealing with migrants, they dealing with homelessness.

They’re dealing with all of these things that’s not conducive for business. The highest vacancy rate ever there is a palpable, visible vacancy on State street. Yes. That’s John Vance, a retail broker with decades of experience. Right here. Look at this section of state from Monroe to Adams. Every single storefront is vacant. So when you’re walking on that block, there’s just so much empty space, which then has this effect of hindering leasing.

Vance said short term leases or activations for retail or art galleries could make a major difference here, especially when we’re dealing with a lot of dark storefronts. Turn the lights on, get someone in there, make it feel energized. And so, yeah, people want to get back. Michael Edwards, who leads the Chicago Loop alliance, we’re certainly not out of the woods, told me that’s a conversation they’re having with the city right now to activate those storefronts through art and culture, through artist studios, temporary space, to kind of bridge us between where we are now and sort of standard retail that’ll probably not be here for 18 months.

With other revitalization efforts happening all around State street. Just this week, J. P. Morgan Chase, one of Chicago’s larger employers, unveiled plans for a major investment in the chase tower. So I’m a believer that it comes back confidence. Chicago’s great street will be great again. State street needs smaller wins. Smaller wins to get momentum to the big win of really great retailers back. Taking a larger look at the loop, there’s a more than 20% vacancy rate right now.

Experts tell us they want to see that closer to 10%. More information in the story that’s up on our website right now reporting on now. She’s cute, but we’re not going to deal with that right now because like I said, we got stories to get through. But my point that I’m making with you guys and sharing this is that we’re all again interdependent on each other in order for us to be successful.

I would like to see, contrary to popular belief, Chicago and San Francisco and all the rest of these cities be successful. But I don’t want to see them be successful under these liberal policies that then pour more money into supporting social services and migrants than they are actually supporting the businesses that employ people. We already have the blueprint for success. We know exactly what it takes in order to be successful.

We know historically, and we can look back through the lens of hindsight and say, okay, well, this is the blueprint for what success looks like. I don’t really understand why we’re getting it wrong. What’s up, Carrie? How are we getting this wrong? How is this a thing? I’m focused, but we know what it is. Over 50% vacancies almost every single store. Listen, when you have to depend on anchors such as Chase, and even when you think about malls, it’s not the anchor stores that ultimately are the ones that help close the mall.

It’s the fact that you start getting a dot here and then that translates into a dot here and then a dot there. And so you can’t reinvent yourself until you make the city more safe, until you actually incentivize business owners to be there. But they have a war against businesses, a war against wealth, a war against Americans, and not a war against illegal immigration coming into the city.

Think about how many resources they should be allocating towards making sure that they recruit and to make sure that people thrive in a city they can’t even reinvent themselves. Let’s continue. What am I doing here? There we go. Got to reconfigure my stuff here to make sure it’s right. .

See more of The Millionaire Morning Show w/ Anton Daniels on their Public Channel and the MPN The Millionaire Morning Show w/ Anton Daniels channel.