St. Paul Reporter

Many businesses are still recovering from the protests and looting in the Twin Cities that occurred after the death of George Floyd, with Snelling Avenue Fine Wines being one of the businesses. 

“We have no income. It’s hard. We are struggling now,” Mai Vang, owner of the store, told Finance & Commerce. 

Vang's businesses has been shuttered since May of this year after looters destroyed inventory and damaged the interior and exterior of the building. She said she hopes to reopen sometime in October.

Snelling Avenue Fine Wines is expected to have $350,000 worth of repairs, with other businesses in the area, such as the Auto Zone that suffered fire damage, to add on to make the area needing $1 million worth of repairs, Finance & Commerce reported. 

Over 170 businesses were damaged or looted during protests and riots, the St. Paul Police Department said on Twitter. 

Many of the businesses in the area don't have the insurance to repair and rebuild from the damages either. 

“A lot of smaller [businesses] around the neighborhood have closed because they don’t have insurance coverage,” Vang told Finance & Commerce. “It costs a lot to rebuild everything and buy inventory back.”

But groups in the neighborhood are forming relief efforts to help the struggling businesses. 

“At first, most impacted businesses were working with their insurance company, trying to determine what was covered,” Chad Kulas, executive director of the Midway Chamber of Commerce, said in an email to Finance & Commerce. “Now they are working on getting the work done, and for some that means reopening.”