Hamline-Midway business owners looking at moving due to drug issues

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The tight-knit, community-centered feel of St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood is what brought Angie and Ted Vig’s guitar shop, Vig Guitars, to their current location along Snelling Avenue ten years ago.

“After the unrest happened, everybody came out and started cleaning up and helping and asking if we needed help,” said Angie Vig.
    
However, a recent epidemic, as Angie calls it, of widespread narcotics use — sometimes just outside her business — has impacted public perception, and in turn, foot traffic.

“They won’t stop in because people are gathered in front of a certain business,” said Vig.
    
Drug issues and shoplifting began around the time of the COVID shutdown, she said.

Frustrations over drug use and crime boiled over at a Hamline-Midway Town Hall meeting Thursday night.

“I saw that it got a little heated,” said Vig.
    
A Saint Paul Police incident report from September said the hub of the fentanyl-fueled drug activity centered around Kimball Court Apartments along Snelling Avenue. 

According to that report “every doorway, alley, walkway between buildings, and dark spot available is littered with burnt aluminum foil and dirty needles.” The report goes on to say that employees at both the nearby Holiday and Taco Bell “…are constantly threatened and harassed for being… unwilling to allow people to shoplift.”
    
“Door Dash drivers at Taco Bell have been robbed several times out in front of the business,” the report said.

It’s gotten so bad, the owners of Vig Guitars said they are looking at moving their business to a different area. 

“It’s like we’re being forced to move, to leave,” said Vig. 

Vig said there are no easy answers to solve the neighborhood’s drug epidemic.

“There’s a lot of help out there, but there’s a lot of people who don’t want to accept it.”