As if Joe Biden’s America weren’t a bad enough environment for small business owners, it’s fixing to get even worse—not only do they have to consider a looming recession, inflation driving up overhead, smash and grabs (oftentimes with little to no recourse), a consumer with less to spend, sky-high insurance rates, and increasing taxation, now they get to wonder if copper thieves will strip their A/C units and put their small, family-owned enterprise out of business during their busiest month of the year.

Because, that’s exactly what happened to the owners of a local ice cream shop in Louisville, Kentucky. Here’s the story, from NBC-affiliate WAVE: 

Dixie Highway ice cream shop closed after AC unit torn apart in copper wire theft

Panchito’s Ice Cream is a family-owned business. Owner Jose Fabian and his wife opened their Dixie Highway location in December of last year and were looking forward to what would typically be their busiest month of the year.

Fabian learned about the theft when he got a call from one of his employees saying the AC at the shop didn’t seem to be working.

‘I contacted our AC maintenance company, they sent a technician out here, he went on the roof, and he was surprised to see what was up there,’ Fabian said. ‘He looked at the unit and saw that it was torn apart.’

Now, replacing the unit is a logistics nightmare—the AC unit was on the roof of the building, meaning a crane is required, and the height of summer means backed up technicians—so Panchito’s has been forced into closure, “losing customers in the middle of their peak season.”

Fabian and his wife own another location, and they’re making every conceivable effort to keep providing their employees an income:

‘We’re trying to move the employees at this location to our Preston Highway location so they don’t lose any hours of work and we’re just going to try to keep them employed for as long as we possibly can,’ Fabian said.

Now, copper has been a prime target for thieves for ages, but only recently has the demand grown by leaps and bounds, and prices are “surging.” Here’s why, from a May report at CarbonCredits.com:

The surge in copper demand is driven by its pivotal role in renewable energy generation, electric vehicles, and grid infrastructure crucial for achieving net zero emissions. Market dynamics and global supply concerns have propelled copper prices upward, with top companies witnessing significant growth.

And, as I previously blogged, a new study revealed that copper mines can’t even extract enough copper to keep up with the artificial demand to meet the needs of the “net zero” transition industry—no wonder thieves are stripping electric equipment like piranhas.

Joe Biden has waged a war on the middle class, which obviously almost entirely incorporates small business owners, and the attacks just keep coming.

Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr, unaltered.