Business owners across the country are seeing the writing on the wall. Prominent stores nationwide are taking big-time precautions in anticipation of potential trouble surrounding Tuesday’s Election Day.

In Manhattan, Chanel and Levi’s were among those deciding to board up storefronts with plywood on Friday afternoon following a warning from the NYPD. Police cautioned store owners in the protest hotspots to take extra precautions before the election, a police official said.

“The NYPD talked to many segments of the business community this week and advised that businesses in or in the area of location that have historically been protest targets, Washington Square and Union Square for example, and gave them advice to take extra precaution,” the official said in a New York Post story.

Across the country in California, Rodeo Drive will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday to cars and pedestrian traffic. Beverly Hills Police Chief Dominick Rivetti, in a videotaped announcement, said his department would go on “full alert” and City Hall advised some businesses to consider boarding up.

“As election day approaches,” Rivetti said, “and with the potential of increased demonstration and protest activity across the region, the city is taking a proactive approach.”

Some of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue shopping district stores have boarded windows. The Magnificent Mile Association told NBC News they and the city will have an auxiliary command center on Tuesday to share real-time information to businesses.

Regardless who the winner is on Tuesday night, or even in the more likely scenario that we don’t even know the result of the presidential election yet, officials know the odds of it being chaotic and potentially violent in many big cities is unfortunately very realistic.

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