After The Riots: How A St. Paul Company Helped Clean Up Lake Street
October 22, 2020
After rioters overtook Lake Street earlier this summer, Mark Larson was inundated with calls.
As CEO and owner of St. Paul-based Clean Response Inc., he’s overseen countless cleanup jobs over the years, tackling everything from water damage repairs and mold removal to death scene cleanups. But he’d never been called on to handle damages after a riot.
He quickly got to work, dispatching crews to work on dozens of businesses the morning after. Larson estimates that he’s helped clean up more than 140 riot-damaged businesses in the Twin Cities. Many of those were along Lake Street in Minneapolis, but there were other jobs in St. Paul and north Minneapolis.