Mooks
[X] Slick salesmen with sharp suits and sharper smiles.
We're a sleazy corporation, let's do what sleazy corporations do. They show up in her room acting all conscientious and concerned and oh so charitable and really she should think of them as public advocates here to do her good by telling her about this amazing new deal. And basically just smiling and being comforting and understanding and steadily pushing bits of paper for her to clumsily sign while talking about how this new doublereverse reach around happy ending uberfinace mortgage on her bookstore will let her deal with those pesky bills now before they go to collections and completely destroy her credit.
(Or worse, what if because of her accident she loses the bookstore!? Not saying that that could happen but, y'know, she should just consider all her options.)
Basically call in the budget Patrick Batemans, they're still mooks because it's pretty obvious on close inspection that they're really just a bunch of oddly similar pretty faces stamped on pretty bodies, and that they're just reciting their pitch by rote. That their smile doesn't really reach their eyes and they seem to repeat themselves a bit. Failure would probably involve her calling her lawyer friend to look over this with her to make sure it's all above board, resulting in them bugging the fuck out. A complication would probably be this turning into a protracted court battle once someone goes "how the
fuck was this legal?" before we get everything all sewed up and then realizing "Oh, wait, it totally wasn't."
I think the main point in their favor is that...we've already applied the stick in the form of the brute squad. Let's apply the carrot now. Attack dog lawyers, thugs, the solution isn't more outright intimidation. It's the judicious application of fear, fear of not having That Thing You Need but here's a pretty, pretty man who's willing to sell it to you.
Getting your hands on the Site
[X] Civic Government: Have the local government incorporate the slice of land the bookshop stands on as part of a new industrial zoning district.
Why yes, I did watch that new John Oliver.
Basically we bury it in local government minutiae. The government incorporates it as an area for infrastructural development for the betterment of the town, the local residents/vendors (in this case Anna) have the option to vote on the passage of this. But of course this election is held while she's in the hospital and
fortunately Black Goat is now the majority owner of the land in question by virtue of these somewhat blearily signed pieces of paper. So our vote counts too.
We vote to give it to ourselves for development which means, obviously, it can no longer safely function as a commercial zone. The book store will have to be temporarily closed down until construction is complete (read: indefinitely). Tough luck Anna, should have exercised your civic duty and voted.
The reason for this over eminent domain is that eminent domain is a lot more likely to provoke a sort of backlash I think. It's a big, flashy decision that could have the town up in arms. This way we have reams of paperwork to fall back on that we can use to bore anyone to death with/stun any passing elephants. On close inspection it almost certainly doesn't hold up, but who's going to spend their entire weekend poring over old records at City Hall?
Not heroic teens, that's for sure.
