When Maya Santamaria was opening a Minneapolis club in 2003, a city worker handed her a card for a Minneapolis police officer and said, “You’re going to work with this guy.”

To get a business license, a licensing employee told her she had to hire a certain number of off-duty Minneapolis police officers to provide security.

Why?

“Because they’re racist and we’re Mexican,” Santamaria said. “They didn’t want to let Mexicans have nightclubs.”

That’s her conclusion after seeing other similar-sized, white-owned venues escape the same mandate.

With over a million dollars invested, Santamaria had little choice. “You gotta do what they say,” she said.

Then, MPD “socked it to me,” she said. She started out paying the officers $40 to $45 an hour, always more than one officer per night. And they didn’t just work one or two hours; they charged a minimum of four hours no matter how many they actually worked, she said. The pay gradually increased to nearly $60 an hour.

“I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars,” she said. “There were many years I wasn’t making it, and they didn’t give a damn.”

Santamaria was later required to come up with security plans outlining the number of officers needed per night. The officers insisted on getting paid cash, she said. She feared if she didn’t oblige, she’d lose her license.

Eventually, another officer helped schedule off-duty work: Derek Chauvin. He worked security at her club for 17 years.