Milwaukee, WI
Outside the RNC, small Milwaukee businesses and their regulars tried to salvage a sluggish week
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Jay Nelson was standing outside the convenience store he manages in downtown Milwaukee when one of his regular customers walked by on her daily stroll around the neighborhood.
“I’ve been telling people to come and buy even just a bottle of wine,” she said, stretching out her arms. “I hope it helps.”
Pulling her in for a hug, Nelson said they needed all the help they could get.
The store he has managed for nearly a decade, Downtown Market & Smoke Shop, was among the many businesses sealed off by tall metal fencing for the 2024 Republican National Convention, a sprawling footprint that shut down portions of the city’s downtown for more than a week.
For small businesses like Downtown Market, the RNC didn’t deliver a decisive victory, instead hindering sales despite earlier promises that it would bring an economic boost.
“I want you to take all your money to Milwaukee, spend it that week, and leave it in Milwaukee,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson said two years ago at the RNC’s summer meeting where it was announced that the city would host the GOP’s national convention.
But Samir Saddique, owner of Downtown Market and the neighboring Avenue Liquor, said the convention brought “a lot of nothing.” Traffic and sales took a nose dive soon after the fencing went up in front of the stores. By Thursday, the RNC’s final day, the liquor store had made just 10% of its usual sales, he said.
“We’re barricaded away from the rest of the world,” Saddique said.
Claire Koenig, a spokesperson for Visit Milwaukee, which promotes the city as a tourism destination, said economic impact reports will likely take three months to compile.
Across the Milwaukee River, which marked the eastern edge of the RNC secure zone, just one seat was taken at the bar inside Elwood’s Liquor & Tap during their Wednesday happy hour, which is usually a reliably busy night for the red-booth bar near Fiserv Forum where the convention’s main stage was housed.
“Everybody was promised that this was going to be a giant moneymaker for businesses,” bar manager Sam Chung, 30, said. “So it’s strange seeing how much it’s actually killed business for a lot of people outside the perimeter.”
Even their most loyal customers hadn’t stopped by this week, Chung said.
“They don’t even want to come down here because it’s obviously a mess to get here,” she said, adding that she thought “a big part of it is that a lot of our regulars are Democrats.”
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Milwaukee is the deepest blue city in Wisconsin, a key swing state.
Adam Buker, a 21-year-old barista at a coffee shop near one of the convention’s exits, which leads attendees onto a wide-open street, said that all week he had been playing music by queer artists as his own protest.
Yet the door kept swinging open at Canary Coffee Bar.
“It 100% has to do with our location,” Buker said Thursday as he packed espresso grounds for a cortado, with a Frank Ocean track playing in the background.
Though it was outside the secure zone, the cafe’s glass storefront and buttery yellow sidewalk seating weren’t obstructed by the fencing like Saddique’s liquor and convenience stores were. RNC attendees also didn’t have to cross the river to get to the coffee shop, unlike Elwood’s.
After closing this week, Buker said he had been spending his cash tips at some of the struggling bars around the convention’s perimeter.
“From one service worker to another,” he said. “Spread the love.”
As Buker’s final shift during RNC week was coming to an end Thursday evening, a last-minute party outside Saddique’s convenience store was just underway. Saddique and Nelson, the manager, hoped catered tacos and ice-cold green tea flowing from orange coolers would bring customers into the stores that have been open for 20-plus years, surviving a recession and a global pandemic.
Debra Lampe-Revolinski, who has lived in the building adjacent to Saddique’s businesses for 15 of those years, said she pitched the idea for the party earlier in the week, when she realized the expected boost in business would not materialize for her friends.
She knew Saddique and Nelson went to great lengths preparing for the RNC, having seen them hard at work for weeks while they remodeled parts of the stores, she said.
“And then there was just this deflation because the stores were blocked out by those tall metal fences,” she said. “It was so uninviting.”
By the time Trump took center stage Thursday to formally accept the GOP nomination, Lampe-Revolinski said the party, originally aimed at bringing in business, instead had turned into a celebration of surviving the week.
“If anything, this week strengthened our little community on this block to support its local businesses,” she said.
___
Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed from Madison, Wisconsin.
Did RNC sway local voters?
FOX6 wanted to gauge how the week’s events played out in battleground Wisconsin. In Ozaukee County, Cedarburg has become a swing city in a swing state. Here is what some voters there had to say:
MILWAUKEE – The Republican National Convention ended Thursday night.
From the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the convention that followed, to calls from Democrats for President Joe Biden to drop out of the race – voters are now left to make sense of a historic week of American history.
Conventions usually lead to a boost for that party’s nominee in the polls. The campaigns put their chosen message out to the world, and arenas get packed full of excited, loyal supporters. There’s a rock concert atmosphere, as well as speeches from celebrities and some of the biggest names in politics.
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The American Presidency Project keeps track of changes in support after political conventions. When comparing poll averages, those boosts do usually take place – but the score often evens out, since both parties get a chance for that convention bounce.
The Democratic National Convention will take place next month in Chicago.
Swing city, swing state
FOX6 wanted to gauge how the week’s events played out in battleground Wisconsin. In Ozaukee County, Cedarburg has become a swing city in a swing state. Here is what some voters there had to say:
Tom Just, Cedarburg voter for Democrats: “It’s a show making Donald Trump now look like the attempt on his life, now he’s changed. Well, if you listen to his speech, he spoke differently in the beginning, and then he went right back to Donald Trump.”
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Julie Carver, Jackson voter for Trump: “It cemented my decision, and actually, I was kind of on the fence. I am voting for Trump. I don’t like a lot of the things he does, but I do like the policies. And I do remember what it was like four years ago.”
Cedarburg voted for Trump in 2016, voting Republican as it had in previous elections. In 2020, though, Biden won the city by just 19 votes – turning blue in a strongly red Ozaukee County.
If you thought the Republican National Convention leaving town meant the end of thousands of visitors wandering downtown Milwaukee in business wear, think again.
The Northwestern Mutual annual conference is back this weekend. More than 12,000 employees and agents of the Milwaukee-based insurance and financial services company will gather downtown for the multi-day event.
Here’s everything you need to know about the conference — including what’s up with those long ribbons many of the employees will be sporting.
How long is the Northwestern Mutual conference?
The conference will run from July 20 to 23. The gathering is typically held at Fiserv Forum and the Baird Center but will be on the Summerfest grounds this year — because takedown of the RNC is still underway at those facilities.
What happens during the Northwestern Mutual conference?
Employees and agents will spend most of their time in Milwaukee attending company meetings and events.
But it’s not all work: the company also dishes out on big-ticket headliners to entertain employees. Last year, country music star Kenny Chesney put on a private concert for the convention-goers. The company is keeping with the country music theme this year, with singer Eric Church scheduled to headline, the Milwaukee Business Journal reported.
What are those ribbons all the Northwestern Mutual people wear?
When you see the ribbons, you know Northwestern Mutual is in town.
Throughout the conference, Northwestern Mutual agents will wear lanyards with colorful ribbons that sometimes extend almost all the way to the floor. The ribbons denote sales goals achieved, benchmarks passed, accomplishments made, and employees earn them over their time at the company.
Demonstrators protest police shooting, hotel death
Ohio police have released more video from a fatal police shooting in Milwaukee, and protesters called for justice, on Thursday, July 18.
MILWAUKEE – Police officers from Columbus, Ohio – in Milwaukee to help with law enforcement during the Republican National Convention – shot and killed a man on Tuesday, July 16.
A portion of the bodycam video was released later that day. Now, the rest has come out.
Video showed the man, identified as Samuel Sharpe, with knives in each hand moving toward another person before police shot him.
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New video shows police handcuffing Sharpe after the shooting and putting a wrap on his arm
Officers also handcuffed the other man, set up crime scene tape and discussed communication.
Bodycam video from Milwaukee police shooting involving Columbus, Ohio officers
March outside RNC
On Thursday, hundreds marched downtown – just outside of the RNC – in support of Sharpe and another man who was recently killed.
Red Arrow Park filled with protesters before the group headed onto the streets with their message.
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The protest focused on two men killed in two very different situations. But both families said the deaths of their loved ones did not have to happen.
Demonstrators stopped outside the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee hotel. That’s where 43-year-old D’Vontaye Mitchell died after security guards tried to restrain him.
March for justice in deaths of D’Vontaye Mitchell, Samuel Sharpe
Witnesses said Mitchell tried locking himself in a women’s restroom and fought with security. Employees held him down until police arrived; when they did, he was unresponsive.
The employees involved have been fired. Supporters want to see the people involved criminally charged.
Sharpe’s family
The march also focused on Sharpe. His family said Sharpe chose to live in a tent community, and he was still very connected to his family.
They said, in recent days, Sharpe told them a man had been threatening him. They said he left the tent community, but returned to get his dog.
Sharpe’s brother told FOX6 the 43-year-old had advanced multiple sclerosis and struggled to stand. He believes his brother was not the aggressor in Tuesday’s encounter.
“I believe my brother was defending himself. If anything he was defending himself,” he said. “If you’ve ever seen someone with advanced MS, it’s very laborious to walk, anything like that.
“It’s like putting a child against an adult. A toddler that barely knows how to walk. He ain’t going to get away. The man that was in that video knew all of that information as well.”
Both families said their fights do not end Thursday. They will continue to rally and protest until they get what they believe is justice.
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