Hobby Lobby defies shutdown orders, reopens some stores

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As Hobby Lobby continues its mission to keep doors open in the face of the coronavirus, the arts-and-crafts retailer is quietly reopening stores around the country, defying states' stay-at-home policies.

On Monday, the company resumed business in several states where it had been forced to temporarily close. A March 28 memo obtained by Business Insider equipped managers with talking points for "how to respond and communicate if visited by a local authority that asks why we are open."

In a separate leaked note sent early last week, executives wrote that the company "is going to make every effort to continue working the employees."

The reopenings include stores in Ohio and Wisconsin - which both enacted strict shelter-in-place orders on March 24 - where nearly all Hobby Lobby locations have been reopened after shuttering for only one week. During calls made to each location by Business Insider, employees confirmed that all 19 Hobby Lobby locations in Ohio were open as of Monday afternoon, as were 17 out of 20 stores in Wisconsin that were still listed as "temporarily closed" on Google.

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