The small business owners in Minnesota have had it with the restrictions that have kept their businesses from keeping food on the table of the employees and serving the communities. As such, more than 150 small businesses from the state have banded together to resist further lockdown measures should they be enacted.

Minnesota is looking to extend lockdown measures under a “dial back” order, requiring all restaurants to cease any indoor or outdoor dining and resort to delivery only. Gyms and fitness centers are to close and all sports will be postponed.

But the business owners appear to be rallying together to declare that enough is enough.

As first reported by the Daily Wire, a group calling themselves the Reopen Minnesota Coalition posted a lengthy open letter on Friday to Facebook:

If you don’t own a business but would love to support these brave businesses and their thousands of employees, we will be posting the list of open businesses the night before they choose to open next week (Wed, the 16th or Fri, the 18th). Go give them business, tip well, and continue supporting them in the coming weeks. The fear is real out there, and fearful people can be very mean, so a kind word to these owners and employees in this Christmas season can mean everything.

For those detractors to our cause, we appeal to your sense of justice and mercy, which we hope you have. These businesses represent not some money-hungry owners looking to swim in pools of gold, but rather people who have spent their lives risking so much to accomplish their dreams, employees struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads just as Christmas arrives, and so many other suffering Minnesotans. So we ask you simply and gently, have a heart.

For those who want to say that these businesses are putting others at risk… we challenge you to show us from any science and data that the risk of going to a bar, or working out at a gym, or bowling ten frames, or teaching a small dance class is any more dangerous than going to Walmart, walking through a crowded MOA, or spending two hours in a busy supermarket. Trust us, we all have families, many of us have family members in the medical field, many of us have lost loved ones to COVID.

But the state’s own data DOES NOT support any of the current lockdown, and much of the country and world stands amazed that Minnesota and a few other states still have leaders resorting to the failed policies of mass lockdown, especially lockdowns so arbitrary as this one.

We demand the right to provide for our families as we always have, give income and employment to our workers as we always have, care for our communities as we always have, knowing that we care more for each of them than any St. Paul bureaucrat ever will. We have inalienable rights that no one can bully us out of without recourse. So next week, we plan to #OpenSafe.

The coalition’s founder, Darius Teichroew, told CBS News that the goal of the rebellious business owners is “to provide a little bit of peace and prosperity to these owners and their desperate employees as we approach Christmas.”

As the Daily Wire pointed out, various members of the coalition give solid reasoning for resisting the lockdown extensions, most of which include being able to put men and women back to work so they can feed their families:

Lisa Monet Zarza, who owns Alibi Drinkery in Lakeville, told CBS Minnesota, “My heart breaks for anybody that has lost someone to COVID or wasn’t able to see a person that they loved because of the shutdowns and restrictions on the hospitals. And we would never say that COVID isn’t real, but we need to be open. At the end of the day, people just want to feed their families, care for their employees, provide for their communities.”

Zarza said she has she’s furloughed 45 employees at the bars she owns, the Star-Tribune reported.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a statement saying, “I get no happiness out of enforcing the order, but my duty to protect Minnesotans from the deadliest global pandemic in a century demands it … It’s not fair to the vast majority of businesses who are doing their part to stop the spread of COVID-19 and are complying with the executive order to let a handful who chose not to compete unfairly with them.”

There hasn’t been word as of yet on how Minnesota’s government will respond to all of these business owners resisting the lockdown, but it’s likely not going to go well for Minnesota’s leadership. If they do come down on all of these businesses, it might generate sympathy and further resistance to lockdown measures from the people. However, if it continues, it may inspire more businesses to open up free of the fear that anything will happen to them.

It would appear that no matter what, the people are taking charge in Minnesota.