Lawmakers: Give Unemployment Benefits to Nightclub Workers

ST. PAUL -- Several Minnesota lawmakers are pressing to ensure former staff at a shuttered Minneapolis nightclub gets unemployment benefits.

Club Jager closed earlier this month amid an uproar over the owner's $500 donation to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's 2016 U.S. Senate campaign. The disclosure of that campaign donation triggered a backlash, including much of its staff who walked out and several regular performers canceling gigs.

A group of state representatives said Monday those employees who quit should still get unemployment benefits from the state. St. Paul Rep. Tim Mahoney and Minneapolis Rep. Jim Davnie say the bar employees who quit "made the same decision all of us would have made in that situation.''

The pair delivered a letter to Department of Employment and Economic Development Monday.