In just 45 minutes—half an hour one day, 15 min the next—I made phone calls I never imagined I’d make. I spoke with the governor’s office, with a senator, with a representative. I did it because I witnessed something deeply wrong unfolding in my own community.
Doug, the owner of a small vino garage in Columbia, is being crushed by a $45,000 insurance requirement—one never intended for businesses like his.
Vino Garage of Cottontown is not a corporation. Doug is a one-man show with one employee. He serves quality wine in a peaceful space where neighbors become friends. It’s a place I’ve gone when I needed help printing, when the walls of my home were falling apart-because home is not just four walls. It’s Columbia.
And Doug isn’t alone. There’s Chad and his father. Marwin and Bob. Mohamed and his wife. The tree company. The barbershop. The glass repair shop. The dental office. This newspaper. These are not just business owners— they are the pillars of the community— the hands and hearts that hold up our city.
If one man is forced to close his business because of a policy not made for him, then that policy has failed. It has harmed not just a business owner but an entire community. When one of us hurts, we all lose.
I’ll be the first to admit there were times I didn’t listen. I was anxious, scared, and distracted by my own emergencies.
Today, if they have a crisis, I carry my part of the burden proudly-like a brick in the building of our collective heritage.
This is culture in its most honest form—not slogans or speeches but people showing up for one another. I ask you—our leaders, our decision-makers— to do the same.
Doug deserves an exemption. A reevaluation. A path forward. If not for him alone, then for all of us who call Columbia home.
Let’s make space to prosper.
Let’s save the businesses that have saved us.
Let’s honor the people who never stopped showing up.
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