Small Town Mafia
the joys of small town goons
Today is the anniversary of the Killdozer event that happened back in 2004, when Marvin Heemeyer rolled over the town of Granby, CO with his custom made Bulldozer. Tired of their small town constrictive politics, stealing, code “enforcement” and just the general squeeze they put on him and his small mechanics shop (because they wanted his property and he was an outsider), he rolled over all of the buildings in the town and then blew his own head off inside the contraption.
He didn’t hurt any people, just collapsed their stupid town hall and their stupid shops…he was obsessed with fighting for his rights and they drove him to the brink. “I have become unreasonable…” he said, in his manifesto. That was the hill he’d die on. Literally.
My oldest brother would have done something like that. I’m a bit ungovernable too. I’ll die on my feet instead of dying on my knees for sure. That’s sort of how I ended up here. But that’s another story. I’m too lazy to get revenge though. I just move on. Sprinkle some salt on your driveway, put your name in the freezer and adios.
I was too young to know the gut punch of someone stealing your business after a down payment and then running off with the equipment. But my brother was scammed out of his landscape company and plant nursery in the 90s. I knew it was the end for him, he definitely snapped. He went from a handshake deal kinda guy to a paranoid gun collector. He got the business back, paid the employees the salaries they’d been denied and got the nursery. The heavy equipment though, back hoes, earth movers, pavers. Gone.
He would have done a Heemeyer but instead kept it inside and died of a brain tumor. Same year actually. 2004. He was the age I am now.
I too have been shut out from small town goons a time or two. After I sold my two small restaurants outside of Atlanta, I went to a rural mountain town. The pilot light of ‘maybe I’ll open another cafe’ is always on in your lizard brain after you’ve been in the business for a while. I imagine it’s how couples who should get a divorce decide to have another kid. Why not? How hard could it be?
I had a couple of Sunnybrook Farm delusional plans for an old country store and another for a vacant cafe in a “charming village” in Northeast Georgia. The latter fell apart when the old woman who owned it whispered too loudly to her sycophant sons, “I don’t like her, she asks too many questions…” and for good reason. I was a relatively seasoned restaurateur who had learned what an idiot I was on a couple of commercial leases in the past. I knew what to ask for and my inquiry as to why Georgia Power said that all of the units in the building got billed to the cafe’s account… I was dismissed.
The Universe Has Spoken.
How many middle aged ladies had tried that business with a nice banana bread and chicken salad on marble rye to go asunder with a crippling electric bill they couldn’t afford. The chandelier store below the cafe had all the lights on even on a holiday weekend when everything was shuttered. That belonged to the son. It all made sense in 8 minutes of a walk through. Also, I imagined, a fire hazard. *(Fun fact: someone else rented the place and in a couple years it did in fact burn to the ground taking nearly the entire block with it. Faulty wiring, not considered arson, case closed. )
The hubris of young success had me high on ideas for a general store on a busy shady highway on the way to a lake where rich hillbillies, country singers and frat boys went water skiing in summer. A no brainer! I can’t believe there isn’t a Peggy’s General Store here right now with gas, propane, wine and amazing panini sandwiches! I’ll do it! I imagined the parades they’d have in my honor for saving their town and making their lives better. The tax revenue I’d raise alone for the town would get me a bench in the town square. I’d try to remain humble.
Not available, can’t find the records, been closed for a decades, tied up in probate, the Riselle family owns it and they don’t want a general store there, termites, ghosts, you name it. NOT AVAILABLE (*to you)
For the first year here in this corner of Mexico that time and commerce forgot I thought look at all this OPPORTUNITY! Waterfront buildings just sitting there vacant! I could put a vet office here and a flower office there, like I’m some venture capitalist. They don’t want ANY of those basic services here. Everyone would rather it stay small and untouched and shitty and without big cartel interference. It’s a small mob that runs this area.
The corner store guy has been here 40 years and he knows they are squeezing him out for his location. There’s a big beer store in the middle of his corner holdings and he said today…I’m selling all of this before the mob boss on the corner stubs me out.
I want him to win. But I’d put my money on a Chinese Lithium mine billionaire to put a Walmart in. But it will likely just be a bigger beer store, owned by Modelo which is Bud Light which is Anheuser Busch which is Belgian owned now. Not Mexican, not American. But like everything else, we’ll find that Modelo is actually owned by Blackrock.
As the Chinese quietly build their new port for the natural gas pipeline. Still can’t buy a cup of coffee here but they’re extracting gas from Texas and sending it to the Sea of Cortez.
So regular little people survive on secret market reselling from home. Tacos, cakes, stuff they get from Costco and markup. Tons of eyelash and brow threading and dye. Fingernails of course. Knock off Nikes and Bad Bunny tshirts from a concert you didn’t attend. We have Big Lots and TJMaxx in the States, they have Stuff I Grabbed from a Container that Flipped Over on the highway from Arizona on its way to TJMaxx. They are not interested in my General Store either.
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