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According to The Daily Wire, the council declined to renew the licenses for the Canopy by Hilton and the Renaissance Hotel at the Depot, instead voting to “hold” the applications for another legislative cycle. The delay pushes any final decision to a later meeting, after a public comment period, leaving two large employers in limbo and signaling to businesses that compliance with the law may no longer be enough in a city increasingly driven by activist demands.
The controversy was sparked earlier in the week when City Council member Aisha Chughtai argued that automatic renewal would somehow undermine public safety. “These are two hotels that have contracts with the federal government that allows for housing of federal agents as they are coming in and while they are here during their stay,” she said, framing the presence of federal law enforcement as a threat rather than a basic function of national sovereignty.
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Chughtai then escalated her rhetoric, linking the liquor licenses directly to her opposition to ICE. “Now, let’s talk about why a liquor license renewal is attached to ICE agents staying at a hotel. What we’re seeing happen in real time in hotels that have these types of contracts with the federal government is at night when agents come back from their like being out and about and you know beating people up and separating families and abducting people for fun all day. They drink heavily at the bar and have weapons on them … that is a like real danger to public safety in our community, and so necessitates us having further conversations to try to figure out how we can ensure greater public safety for the residents we serve.”
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During the meeting, council members turned to city attorney Quinn O’Reilly to clarify the legal framework governing liquor license renewals. O’Reilly explained that the applications were before the council precisely because city staff had determined that both hotels were in full compliance with all relevant liquor licensing laws and regulations, making them eligible for renewal under existing rules.
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That legal assessment prompted several members to question why the council was even considering punitive action against businesses that had met every statutory requirement. From a rule-of-law perspective, the notion that a city could weaponize licensing against lawful enterprises based on ideological hostility to federal immigration enforcement raises serious concerns about arbitrary governance and the erosion of predictable standards.
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Council member LaTrisha Vetaw and others pushed back, but it was Council member Andrea Jenkins Warren who most bluntly called out the move as unfair and potentially discriminatory. Council member Warren said, “This just smells real discriminatory to me. I booked hotels, and they just asked me when I’m checking in, when I’m checking out, and how can I pay … our downtown business district has suffered enough disenfranchisement through all of the closing of buildings, buildings selling for pennies on the dollar. We don’t have time to be playing around in people’s faces with foolishness.”
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Vetaw echoed Warren’s concerns, questioning why the council would refuse to renew licenses that clearly met the legal threshold. Her comments underscored a basic conservative principle: when businesses follow the law, government should not arbitrarily move the goalposts to satisfy activist pressure or ideological crusades.
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Committee chair Aurin Chowdhury, who introduced the motion to delay, insisted the move was driven by constituent outreach and concerns about worker and public safety. “When there are hotels that are a part of our beloved hospitality community, putting them in danger, putting their workers in danger, I think that accountability is 100% warranted,” Chowdhury said, adding that by not immediately renewing the liquor license, the council is “nation-leading right now.”
Chowdhury further criticized the hotel industry, casting large hospitality companies as indifferent to community concerns. “It’s wild to me that multi-million, billion dollar corporations in hospitality can just like sit aside and not answer for it,” she said, signaling a broader hostility toward private enterprise that goes beyond the specific question of ICE contracts.
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Another council member, however, warned that the real victims of this political theater would not be corporate executives but ordinary workers and local residents. “Both hotels are now losing a lot of money … I just want you to remember how much they [hotels] have suffered. And really, it’s their employees because they’re laying people off. So the very people that we try to protect are getting laid off because of the damage and the problems that are befalling these hotels by the protesters.”
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When Chowdhury finally called for a vote, five council members supported renewing the licenses, while nine declined to vote for renewal. The outcome effectively punished two compliant businesses based not on any violation of law, but on the council majority’s political animus toward federal immigration enforcement and the activists’ narrative surrounding ICE.
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After the vote, Council member Jamal Osman moved to add remarks to the official record, using the moment to praise the demonstrators targeting the hotels. “I do want to thank the people that we’re calling agitators. They’re fighting for our people. They [are] out there in the cold, sniffing a gas, dealing with all kind of stuff. People die and lost their lives because of us. Because of us immigrants. Someone like me, someone like Chavez (another council member) … These people are our heroes.”
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The council is scheduled to revisit the issue on February 17th, after a public comment period that will likely be dominated by the same activist voices driving the current standoff. For downtown Minneapolis businesses already battered by crime, unrest, and economic decline, the message is unmistakable: even full compliance with the law offers no guarantee of fair treatment when city leaders prioritize ideological posturing over stability, public order, and the livelihoods of their own constituents.
