The landlords' names are Jennifer Young and John Kremer and their business is called The California Building Company, also based in Northeast Minneapolis.
The two of them are classic rent-seekers who specialize in sopping up arts-grants money as a means of building a small local real-estate empire in objective to become land barons of the realm. They are adept at managing their public relations and are especially good at pacifying their tenants as if they were their subjects.
Regarding "the book sale" : the tenant was lured to the building in 2007 with the promise that it was a safe place to build his fledgling online business at a critical hinge moment in bookselling and the publishing trade.
Subsequently, the massive inventory was seized by Young and Kremer in fast maneuver and the tenant physically threatened to leave, or else. Irreparable damage was done to this tenant's life and work.
"Casket Arts Building" is not a safe or legitimate place for doing business, but rather more a hang-out for hobbyists, brooding beatniks, and subsidized arts. This with few exceptions.
Behind a facade of arts&crafts amiability, the landlords are bullies -- smiles are for showing their teeth, and their behavior behind closed doors opportunisic, exploitative and worse.
The political environment is explitly hard left and anti-business. Extant industry and manufacturing that was once prevailed in the Northeast area of Minneapolis has long left for the suburbs to the near north and west, if still within the Twin Cities Metropolitan Region.
This is an abridged version of the original review. There has been one attempted take down of this review since it was originally published and it remains on a filtered list so as not readily available to all queries. December 1, 2010. read more