Recently, Billings found that a segment of their population decided that firebombing is the preferred method of running businesses out of town.
Perhaps too impatient to wait for paranoia-driven regulations or zoning laws written so narrowly that a Chicago purchasing department RFP writer could have written them, someone decided to blow the place up.
Right about the time people outside of Montana have *finally* stopped thinking “Unabomber” about us, someone starts acting like we live in Beirut.
They deserved it
If you felt that “those dirtbags selling medical marijuana got what they deserve“, I’m here to tell you that view ignores the big picture and is shortsighted, no matter how you feel about medical marijuana.
Why? Because your business could be next.
If the community “lets them off”, there’s really nothing stopping the kind of people who did this from doing the same thing to other businesses they don’t like.
Like yours.
Why wouldn’t they like *my* business?
While whatever you do might not seem the least bit controversial to you, it isn’t you who decides what is controversial or offensive to them.
They do.
Consider these examples:
- Medical facilities where controversial procedures are being performed – keeping in mind that to some parts of society, *any* medical procedure is a bad thing.
- Pharmacies where controversial drugs are sold, likewise pharmacies that refuse to sell those same items.
- Advertising agencies, web development firms and print shops which are working on marketing and advertising programs for products / businesses that someone doesn’t like.
- Stores that sell items people don’t like (guns, meat, vegetarian products, products from another country, green products, resource-intensive products, telemarketing, etc).
- Churches that someone doesn’t like. Your church. Their church. Or your open-on-Sunday business.
- Businesses of any kind that are owned by the “wrong kind of person”.
It doesn’t matter who/what wrong is to you and I once someone lights the Molotov cocktail. “Wrong” might mean of the wrong religion, sexual orientation or national heritage. In others, it might just mean “someone from out of state”.
But it doesn’t matter, because they’re just wrong.
Criminal Momentum
Once these kinds of activities gain a little momentum, they’re hard to stop. Once criminals step over a line the first time, it’s easier and easier to continue.
So what does this have to do with business? Lots.
Look at it this way, if Steve Howe’s highly-publicized drug bust in the 1990’s and Montana’s 2008 rating as the state with the deadliest highways in the nation (old news to law enforcement) didn’t keep tourists away, the fact that Montana is one of 14 states offering medical marijuana won’t keep them away – despite Kalispell City Council assertions to the contrary.
Not even forest fires keep all of them away, thankfully.
A relaxing vacation in beautiful downtown Baghdad
However, murders and firebombings on Main Street are a whole different story. No one wants to vacation in modern-day Iraq any more than they chose to relax in 1960’s Mississippi or take eco-tours of the riots in South Central LA.
If any of your customers sell condos, serve food, clean hotel rooms, sell tires and batteries, rent bed and breakfast rooms, fix cars or do just about anything else here in the Flathead, their tourism income affects your business. Just a reminder from Mister Obvious.
What happens next will be driven by your expectations of your community / government and how they are held accountable.
Make your expectations clear: The Flathead is no place for wanna-be terrorists.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.